The Last Stand
by Kimmeth
Summary: The final part of the Devil in the Details trilogy. Five years have passed since the terrifying events of 'Pandora's Box', but little do the staff of Cackle's Academy know that the horror is not yet over in the most dramatic episode yet! NOW COMPLETE!
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **I do not own these fabulous ladies (and gents), with the exception of **Della**. I also lay claim to the plotline, although I want to take this opportunity to thank **NCD** for nudging me in the right direction. I KNOW you say that I would have got there in the end by myself, but it would have taken a lot longer!

**Note: **So here we are! The final part in the **Devil in the Details** trilogy. It is here at last! Please enjoy, and I hope it lives up to the legacy...

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**The Last Stand**

**One**

Amelia Cackle looked down at the application form and references on her desk with puzzlement, not quite able to read the neat, tightly-packed handwriting. She shrugged, putting the fuzziness down to her needing new glasses, before looking up at the young woman sitting in front of her. She was going to have to give her the job: not only was her curriculum vitae extremely impressive, she was the only applicant for the position of potions-mistress, a role that had been vacant for three strenuous months since its previous occupier had retired unexpectedly, citing health concerns. Amelia had been perplexed by Miss Redwood's sudden departure; the ex-deputy-head had not been showing any of the tell-tale symptoms of stress over the few weeks prior to her resignation. Indeed, her illness had come completely out of the blue. There was something that did not quite add up.

Amelia pushed the thought to the back of her mind and cleared her throat before addressing the sole applicant for Miss Redwood's position. Aside from her excellent academic prowess, the woman had a mesmerising look about her, something almost otherworldly.

_Well, Miss Hardbroom. It seems to me that you are perfectly suited to the job. How soon can you start? _

The woman licked her glossy, cherry-red lips.

_As soon as you like. _

Something in the depths of Amelia's memory told her that something wasn't quite right. Something told her that although this lady's porcelain face was correct, there was something odd about her. Something in the back of Amelia's mind told her that Constance Hardbroom was a formidable witch with a penchant for black, her long dark hair plaited and scraped back, adding to an already fearsome demeanour. The specimen in front of her could not have been further removed from Amelia's mental image. She was softer than the brusque young woman that Amelia remembered; her manner was charming, disarmingly deferential. Spell-binding, almost… Her looks and youth were such that she would be an instant favourite with the girls – that was a certainty. Amelia shrugged inwardly. Perhaps that was what the school needed, shaking up a bit, and this young woman would most definitely do just that, with her long ponytail of ebony curls cascading down her back and secured with a red ribbon that matched the rest of her ensemble: a long crimson velvet coat falling open over a skirt of the same shade that exposed veritable miles of leg. Amelia coughed nervously as Miss Hardbroom recrossed her ankles; it was an extremely good job that Cackle's had no male pupils, or else they might have had a catastrophe on their hands.

_Would Monday be possible? _

The pink tongue darted out again, snake-like.

_Monday would be perfect. _

She rose to leave, and as they shook hands – the new staff-member's unusually warm to the touch – Amelia still could not loosen the impression that there was something extremely wrong with the scenario. Constance Hardbroom, she was sure, did not look like this, nor act like this. There was something amiss, and Amelia simply could not put her finger on it. She watched the woman disappear in a wisp of inky smoke, and felt compelled to follow her progress, moving across to her office window and watching as the same dark tendrils heralded the woman's arrival on the outside of the building. It was dark outside, strange shadows cast across the landscape… Amelia was sure that the interview had not taken so long that it could have become dark so quickly, it was the middle of spring, after all.

A man appeared out of the blackness, and Amelia jumped at his presence, wondering how long he had been there. His face was unfamiliar, but the headmistress had the unshakeable feeling that she recognised the new arrival from somewhere. He walked sedately over to Miss Hardbroom and spoke inaudibly. Amelia just caught the reply, and it chilled her to the bone.

_Got in. Piece of cake. Ours before you know it. _

The man pulled her newly-appointed (and soon to be newly-fired, if Amelia followed through on her now-screaming instincts) potions-mistress into a tight embrace, leaning in to kiss her passionately on the lips. As he bent her over backwards, Miss Hardbroom's gaze locked with Amelia's above and the headmistress drew back in shock and horror, stumbling back to her desk as a voice began to ring in her ears. The young woman's eyes had been a brilliant, glittering ruby.

"Amelia!"

She looked down at the papers on her desk, startled when the text that had been there before was no longer reading various achievements and dates of examinations taken, but four individual words.

"Amelia!"

The voice in her head – a comforting, familiar voice – was louder now, persistent, worried, but Amelia had to look down at the writing that was appearing in front of her on the page, the letters written in a blood-red calligraphy that melded into the paper, spiky capitals spelling out a chilling message.

_WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN_

"Amelia!"

Amelia jerked awake, lifting her head off the staffroom table and removing the piece of paper that had become adhered to her cheek during her snooze. Constance was hovering over her: the real Constance, black-clad, ramrod straight and with her immense volume of hair tightly compacted into a knot at the back of her head. The blessedly familiar sight made Amelia give an audible sigh of relief, causing her deputy to furrow her brow in puzzlement.

"Just an odd dream," Amelia explained hastily, although 'odd' was possibly not the most accurate word to use in the circumstances. 'Unnerving', would have been better, or 'downright scary'.

Constance raised one eyebrow.

"After the events of recent years, Headmistress, both you and I know all too well that unusual dreams are rarely a sign of good things to come."

Amelia was thrust back into the past with a shudder, remembering the terrifying events that had befallen the school five years previously. Firstly, Agatha had dragged the school to Hell, and they had only just managed to escape thanks to the aid of the magical Liaison, Della Spinder, whose existence had been kept under wraps for twenty-three long years. Less than a year after that, the Devil himself had intervened in their peaceful lives, opening the mysterious Void and unleashing its chaos on the world. In the end he had restored order, but Amelia retained a creeping suspicion that he was not gone for good.

"Do you think…" Amelia began, but the words died in her throat. She did not dare speak them aloud, but she knew that Constance understood exactly what she meant.

"I don't know, Amelia," she said quietly. "All I know is that it is the first day of the new school year and that soon, something is going to happen."

The veiled message was clear to Amelia: _let's forget about unsettling dreams for the present and focus on the task at hand. _Amelia nodded, but she could not stop herself from running through the events of her pseudo-nightmare, trying to glean some sort of forewarning from the events, but none was forthcoming.

"You were wearing a red mini-skirt," she told her potions teacher absent-mindedly, receiving a shocked glare in return. Before she could reply, however, there was a knock at the door and a familiar face peered around it.

"I keep forgetting that I don't have to knock anymore," muttered Mildred, looking down at the door handle as if it had done something to offend her. The former-pupil had been teaching at Cackle's for a year now, and although she had blossomed out of her initial awe at being on the same level as the witches that she had admired as superiors only a few short years before, she did sometimes still find it difficult to break away from the mindset of being a pupil. She had never been able to get used to calling Constance by her first name, although she was comfortable enough (after a little gentle cajoling) with the rest of the staff. Presently she seemed to remember why she was hovering in the doorway, and her head jerked up to meet the older witches' eyes. Her face had changed very little, Amelia reflected, still bright, fresh and full of the enthusiasm of youth. The long plaits that had always tended to give her a slightly juvenile air were long gone, replaced with a soft, wavy bob that reminded Amelia, however reluctantly, that one of her most interesting and indeed endearing pupils was now a professional young woman, along with her friends. Maud Moonshine was also returning to her alma mater to teach this year, and she seemed to be taking the transitional process from student to teacher a lot better than Mildred had done, although admittedly, Amelia had not had as much contact with Maud just yet.

"The first-years are waiting outside the gate," Mildred was saying. "It looks like they're all there." She paused. "Time to let them in, do you think?"

Amelia nodded.

"Just let me collect Davina."

Mildred disappeared round the door again, closing it behind her, and Amelia walked over to the staffroom cupboard before knocking tentatively.

"Davina… Davina, it's the beginning of term."

The sound of soft snoring emanating from the cupboard broke off with a series of snuffles, and a muffled voice squeaked 'already?'

"Yes, Davina." Amelia sighed. Her old friend had officially retired two years previously, and she had taken up residence in Spellbinder's Respite Home for Elderly Witches, a move that Amelia had wholeheartedly approved of until she received an urgent telegram from the proprietor of the establishment three weeks after Davina's arrival. The message informed her that the eccentric chanting impresario had managed to burn down an entire wing of the facility after mistaking a topiary squirrel for a dragon and casting some rather wayward spells at it. Would it be at all possible, Mrs Spellbinder had written, for her to be rehoused elsewhere as soon as humanly possible? Since Davina had no other family or indeed abode, the only thing Amelia could think to do in the circumstances was to bring her back to Cackle's, where she would feel at home and where Amelia could keep an eye on her. Whilst she no longer taught, she still insisted on playing the harmonium during assemblies, a feat that had become a running joke amongst the pupils due to Davina's magical (and rather faulty) hearing aid, which somehow managed to tune itself into the nearest radio station at the most inopportune of moments. The number of times that the giggling students had found themselves singing 'Onward Ever' to the tune of Guns 'n' Roses was fast becoming exasperating.

At length, the elderly witch flung open the cupboard door with some exuberance, narrowly avoiding giving Amelia concussion.

"I'm here!" she said enthusiastically. "Ready to meet the new first-years, the poor dears. They all look so small when they first arrive. It always takes them a couple of years to grow into the hat I feel, don't you Amelia?"

Amelia nodded, steering her friend towards the staffroom door. She noted on her way past that Constance had already disappeared, and sure enough, all the staff were assembled outside with the older pupils by the time they reached the courtyard.

Before Walker's Gate was opened and the new first-years allowed entrance into the hallowed halls of Cackle's to begin their magical education, Amelia looked around at her colleagues. Imogen was chatting animatedly with the girls, no doubt outlining her plans for coming years. She had announced during the summer that this year would be her last with the school; she was intending to make a permanent move to Canada and her 'gentleman friend' as Lavinia Crotchet so quaintly put it. Lavinia herself had agreed to return to the school on a part-time basis to resume her one-time post of chanting teacher after Davina's retirement, and she always liked to 'pop in' on the first day of term to get a glimpse of the new arrivals, 'in case there are any terrors I need to prepare myself for'.

Amelia doubted that there would be any terrors. There would be Ethel Hallows, certainly: advanced, precocious, from long magical backgrounds, and there would be Mildred Hubbles: no witch blood in their veins and their talents needing polishing before they could truly be seen, like a diamond in the rough. Amelia smiled as she watched Mildred and Maud talking excitedly off to one side. The girl was definitely one of Cackle's success stories, and Amelia felt it a privilege to have her back with them once more, however much Constance had initially protested at her appointment. Deep down though, Amelia knew that the objection was for appearances' sake only, and the stern deputy was also secretly pleased to see the pupil who had 'plagued her existence', or so she said, putting her remarkable talents to good use.

Constance… Amelia's mind came back to her dream as the younger witch nodded to the pupils to open the gate, and the scared first-years entered the courtyard in a solemn crocodile. There was something coming, the deputy had said. Amelia could tell that much already. What she wanted to know, as she looked at the petrified faces of her newest girls, was when it was coming, and most importantly, what was it going to be?

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**Note2: **An acceptable start? Please let me know with a comment!


	2. Chapter 2

**Note: **Second chapter! Hope you continue to enjoy.

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**The Last Stand**

**Two**

The first day of term was over. The suitcases had been unpacked and the girls were settled in, or as settled in as could be hoped for, considering that for most of them it was their first time away from home and the experience was understandably nerve-wracking. There was still some time to go before lights out, but Mildred knew that she would be hearing the pattering of slippered feet running down corridors to seek solace in new friends soon enough. She still remembered her own first night well, a petrified young girl, too scared of the dark to sleep and wishing that she'd brought a torch with her. It was strange to think that she was now on the other side of the equation, that she was now in the position of authority, with fifty or so girls looking up to her for guidance and advice, and hopefully finding in her face some measure of comfort. A year into her teaching career and Miss Cackle – Mildred had always had trouble adjusting to being on first name terms with the headmistress, and still used her title in her head – had entrusted her with the care of the first-years. Mildred was determined not to be quite as formidable a form-mistress as Miss Hardbroom had been to her all those years ago, but she was also very aware that she was not going to be walked upon. Weighing up the need to be respected by the pupils against the wish to be open and friendly to them was a delicate balance, and Mildred had often found herself trying to emulate the headmistress, who was the only witch she knew to get it spot on. Although Mildred had to concede that Miss Hardbroom had softened over the years that the younger witch had been away from the school in higher education, she still held the capacity to be completely terrifying, even to her fellow members of staff. Mildred did not like to think of the number of times over the previous year that she had been reduced to feeling like a pupil again under the fearsome deputy-head's cold glare.

Now though, she had a year of teaching behind her, and there was another newbie to fill the shaking shoes that she had worn on her first day standing at the front of the class instead of sitting among it. Not that she would wish Maud any traumatic experiences, of course. Her best friend had seemed to acclimatise to the atmosphere in the staffroom with remarkable ease, an ease that Mildred envied her, despite her own social awkwardness having decreased dramatically during her time at university.

Presently there was a knock on her classroom door, pulling Mildred out of her reflections. Maud poked her head round, her neat blonde ponytail flopping over her shoulder.

"How are you?" she asked before coming into the classroom fully and sinking down onto the edge of one of the desks. "I'm exhausted and I've barely done anything!" As a new recruit, so to speak, Maud was not in charge of a particular class, and her teaching duties only began the next day when lessons started. Mildred smiled when she thought of how close Maud had come to not becoming a teacher – she had been on the verge of going off to other projects when Mildred had got in touch and persuaded her to return to her old school. The Witches' Guild had recently changed the way that the magical curriculum was taught, tripling the amount of spellwork to be taught to young witches. Whilst Mildred was already on hand at Cackle's to take care of the branch known as 'creative' spellwork, 'practical' spells still needed to be taught, and with the added pressures of running the administrative core of the school as well as keeping an eye on Miss Bat, Miss Cackle simply did not have the capacity to teach the extra hours.

That was where Maud had stepped into the breach; her knowledge of practical spells and transmogrification was second-to-none amongst all of Mildred's acquaintances, and she had regularly won prizes for her work at Avalon College. Now the two best friends were reunited once more, in the place where they had met for the first time nine years ago. Suddenly, it seemed like only yesterday to Mildred.

"I'm alright," she said, trying and failing to stifle a yawn. She had not anticipated how much the day could have taken out of her. "What's going on in the staffroom?"

Maud burst out laughing.

"The last I heard, Davina had smuggled in another copy of Treasure Island and was threatening to make Miss Cackle walk the plank when she tried to separate her from the book."

Mildred smiled. The chanting teacher's fascination with Robert Louis Stevenson was well-known throughout the school, and the adverse effects that reading the Scotsman's literature had on her already numerous eccentricities were also copiously documented. Suddenly, in the midst of her musings, something caught her eye in the corner of her classroom, and she peered into the shadows cast by the waning evening light, only to find two familiar bright eyes staring back at her.

"Tab?" Mildred mouthed, moving towards the corner where the silver tabby cat was just visible. Her lungs were tightly constricted in her chest, preventing the passage of any sound as she continued to creep forwards, tears threatening the edge of her vision. It couldn't be her Tabby. It just couldn't. He had been put to sleep in the holidays after succumbing to a particularly virulent strain of cat flu.

"Millie," said Maud, twisting round on her perch to follow her friend's progress across the room. Her voice carried a warning tone. "Millie, there's nothing in that corner."

Mildred ignored her for the moment, her attention focussed on the shadowy form, but she could not prevent herself from sneezing as a particle of dust found its way up her nose. When she looked back at her pet's hiding place, the cat was nowhere to be seen. The corner was definitely empty. Perturbed, Mildred stood and looked back at Maud, who gave her a worried half-smile.

"Probably just a trick of the light," she said. Maud nodded, although both women knew that this was not the case. Mildred's imagination was possibly one of the most powerful and indeed overactive that the magical world possessed, but she was also fairly level-headed and not given to extreme romantic fancies. If she thought that she had seen Tabby, then it was not simply wishful thinking on Mildred's part, no matter how much she might have missed her long-term companion. Her many drawings of her pet were the only ones that she had never attempted to bring to life, and she knew in her heart that she would never be able to do it even if she held any desire to. The images that she lifted off the page were not the real thing – Mildred knew and accepted this whole-heartedly. Drawing a picture of a door would not lead her into a mysterious Narnia-esque wonderland, and drawing a picture of Tabby would not bring him back completely. She shook her head. It had to have been a trick of the light, there was no other explanation for it.

"Come on," said Maud, sliding off the desk and curling her fingers around Mildred's arm, breaking off her perplexed stare into the corner. "We'd better get back to the staffroom for debriefing."

Mildred allowed her friend to pull her gently out of the classroom and along the corridor, still lost in thought until the now-familiar sound of Miss Bat's soprano singing a particularly lewd sea shanty wafted into her perception and she burst out laughing in unison with Maud, already able to picture the reactions on the other teachers' faces to the somewhat dubious lyrics. Stopping outside the staffroom, they listened for a moment before determining the precise moment to interrupt before things got too out of hand. Miss Bat stopped singing immediately and the other gathered staff seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief, apart from Lavinia who was merely watching the events from her armchair with an amused expression. Mildred and Maud took their seats at the table and the headmistress began to speak, the candles that illuminated the room in the hours of darkness igniting themselves as the night began to fall.

"Well ladies, the new year has begun." There was a heavy sense of satisfaction in Miss Cackle's voice that Mildred could not help but pick up on. She'd used the same tone the year before, but now there was something different hiding behind her words, something that Mildred could not quite define. She shrugged inwardly and put it down to her hearing playing tricks on her – after all, it would not be the first time this evening that her perceptive senses had not been altogether truthful with her. And, Mildred reasoned, last year she had been on the verge of crumpling into a nervous wreck on her first day on the other side of the desk, so it was understandable if she had not picked up on the full range of nuances in the headmistress's pep talk. She tried to focus on the words, but there was still an indescribable feeling gnawing at the back of her mind that something was not quite right, that something was being hidden from them – a sixth sense whispering unnerving theories in her ear. She turned her head on one side and regarded her employer from this different angle, wondering what it was that was unnerving. Finally the headmistress reached a natural pause in her speech, looking to her deputy for acknowledgement of some sort. Miss Hardbroom nodded and Miss Cackle opened her mouth to speak again before closing it once more, giving an almost imperceptible shake of her head.

"That will be all, ladies."

The meeting dispersed, and Mildred realised with a silent groan that she had not taken in anything that had been said to her, making a mental note to ask Maud as soon as they were out of earshot. Lavinia and Imogen said their goodnights and left the room, and Miss Bat was about to continue where her repertoire of crude maritime drinking songs had left off when she stopped, furrowed her brow in puzzlement and paled visibly before seeming to sink back into her chair, her already petite frame swamped by the worn chintz upholstery.

"Davina?" asked Miss Cackle. "Are you quite alright?"

"Cedric," Davina muttered weakly.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Cedric," Davina repeated. "I could have sworn that I just saw Cedric."

"Davina, there's no-one in the room but us," said the headmistress gently, indicating her fellow staff-members.

"I know… but he was so lifelike! His eyes, and his nose, and his spines…"

"Spines?" yelped Maud, before relaxing. "Ah… Cedric is a hedgehog, yes?"

Miss Bat nodded, before correcting the younger woman.

"He _was_ a hedgehog… until he had a rather unfortunate accident involving my old granny sticking cubes of cheese and tinned pineapple on his prickles and serving him at a tea party…"

Mildred stifled a laugh, as amusing as the situation was, it was also intriguing. The visions of long-lost pets were not limited to herself. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Miss Cackle and Miss Hardbroom holding a series of exchanges solely through facial expressions, and Mildred wondered momentarily how long it had taken the two colleagues to be able to read each other so minutely that they could communicate effectively without words. Her mouth set in a firm line. Something was definitely 'up' as the uninitiated would say, and although she didn't know precisely what was occurring, she knew that it was more than likely to be something unpleasant. She glanced at Maud and found her friend bearing a similar countenance.

"Miss Cackle…" Mildred began. "What's going on?" She didn't feel the need to mention her earlier pseudo-sighting just yet. The headmistress sighed.

"You remember the ninth circle, I take it?" she asked. Mildred and Maud nodded, and she continued. "Well, such an experience would be hard to forget." Miss Cackle paused pensively. "That particular series of events was preceded by a dream, as was the fallout that followed during the next year. There has been another dream. Another warning." Miss Hardbroom took over the foreboding speech.

"We just don't know when. Or why. Or what."

The quiet in the room was all-encompassing, not merely silence but an oppressive lack of sound altogether.

"Should we…" Maud began, gesturing to the door to indicate the women who had just left. Miss Cackle shook her head.

"Imogen is not magic; Lavinia only teaches one day a week… I think it is safe to say that they are on the periphery of these events. It would not do to worry them unduly just yet."

Mildred nodded her agreement, but there was still a question burning in the back of her throat.

"What do we do now?" she asked, choked, not really wanting to hear the reply but needing to do so anyway.

"We do the only thing we can do," the headmistress replied gently. "We wait."

As Mildred digested this simple answer, a feeling of helplessness settling like lead in the pit of her stomach, she thought she caught sight of a pair of bright green eyes peering up at her out of the shadows under the staffroom table, but she knew better than to follow their gaze. The ghosts of the past were returning. The dangers of the Devil had not yet been put to rest…

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**Note2: ***Kimmeth distributes postcards reading 'greetings from Torquay' so that reviewers can give their comments on a postcard...*


	3. Chapter 3

**Note:** Thank you for the continued support and enthusiastic reviews! I present to you the third chapter, in which we meet the wizards again...

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**The Last Stand**

**Three**

Egbert Hellibore closed his eyes and gave a small sigh of contentment as he relaxed in a squashy armchair at the Riverside Retreat of his long-term friend and sparring partner, Algernon Rowan-Webb. It was somewhat telling, reflected Egbert, that Algie had retained a certain yen for being near water after his long stint as a frog; they did say that the longer you remained as a particular animal, the more likely you were to keep its individual traits, and Egbert sometimes amused himself by wondering what would have happened if Algernon had been turned into a fly, or a spider, or something completely obscure like a duck-billed platypus…

It was at times like these, when he was at leisure to think of such mundane things, that Egbert looked forward to his retirement; to the time when he would be able to sit musing these topics for as long as he liked without the pressures of running a school for excitable and unruly young wizards hanging over him. Egbert really was getting too old to carry on in his chosen vocation; the term was only one month old and he had already had to take a weekend off to recover from the exploits of the latest batch of new recruits to come through Camelot's gates. Egbert wondered idly how Amelia was getting on with her new students, and he would have put money on them not being quite as catastrophe-causing as his own. Mind you, Egbert thought with an internal shrug, Amelia had always taken on rather interesting pupils, Mildred Hubble being a case in point. Egbert had been most taken aback when he had gone to Cackle's for his usual Halloween appearance the previous year and found the witch who had once been lauded as the worst in the school now working at the very establishment in which she had gained her infamy. It seemed a fitting way to come full circle, and it was with a great sadness that Egbert noted that none of his lads had followed on into the teaching vocation. That was not to say that they had not gone on to do great things, but sometimes he wished that his magical instruction had left enough of an impact that at least one boy had been inspired to follow his lead.

It could not be denied that Egbert's tired mind and body were looking forward to the long period of rest stretching out over the horizon, but there were so many worries that had to be dealt with before he could find his own idyll, like Algernon had done. He needed someone to take his place, again something that Amelia was blessed with that Egbert wasn't. It was obvious, although unsaid, that Constance was Amelia's natural successor; whilst Benjamin Greengage was a very adept wizard and deputy, he too was nearing the end of his career, and none of the younger, part-time staff possessed the experience or calibre of magic that was necessary, in Egbert's eyes at least, to succeed in the role of headmaster to a prestigious wizarding college. He was going to have to look further afield, ask around in the various magical committees that he chaired if anyone fancied taking over at Camelot. There were a couple of wizards that he had in mind – persuading would be his main difficulty.

Egbert was just pondering how he could broach the subject to his good friend Terrence Jones when the faint shimmer that accompanied magical transportation could be heard ringing through the room.

"Algie?" he asked without opening his eyes. It was not unheard of for wizards to teleport themselves between rooms of their own houses, but walking from the kitchen to the living room was generally considered a more viable method of getting from A to B; using magic for such short distances ran the risk of the Foster's making an appearance. There was no reply, and this perturbed Egbert somewhat. Normally one could hear Algernon coming from about one hundred yards away, talkative as the man often was. Egbert opened his eyes, and his breath caught in his throat at the sight that greeted him. If it had been possible for him to shrink any further back into the chair, he would have done so.

A woman, about forty years of age, was standing in the centre of the room, her eyes darting around her surroundings in a state of semi-wariness, semi-disorientation, but this was not what had caused Egbert the most alarm. Although he had not seen her face for twenty-eight long and lonely years, Egbert would recognise this woman anywhere. He could pick out her visage in a crowd of hundreds.

Standing in front of him in Algernon's living room was Isabella Evangeline Hallow. The love of his life and the mother of his child: a beautiful woman who had been dead for the past twenty years.

"Bella?" he breathed, unable to give voice to the single word. As quiet as his exclamation of disbelief had been, she heard him, and turned her head around to face the one who had addressed her.

"Egbert?"

Her footsteps were silent as she moved towards him, the high wooden heels of her boots making no familiar sound as she tentatively trod the parquet across to him, taking each dainty step one at a time, as if she was afraid of falling through the floor like a spectre. A shiver ran down Egbert's spine involuntarily as he realised that was what Bella must have been – a ghost, an illusion, an ethereal spirit.

"What…" Egbert didn't know how to continue. What could he say? What are you doing here? It sounded too accusing, as if he was not pleased to see her; the opposite of the way he truly felt. His heart was beating in his mouth. There was so much he wanted to say to Bella, so many things that had been kept inside for the past twenty years that he had been unable to share with her. All the developments, all the strange turns that the course of his life had taken… Had she been watching over him from beyond the grave? Egbert had always liked to maintain the somewhat fanciful notion of a guardian angel. So many things to say, and yet he was completely tongue-tied.

"Bert, I don't have much time." Isabella's voice was soft, unhurried, but it carried with it an unmistakeable sense of urgency. "Something's gone wrong Bert, I shouldn't be here, not like this."

That much Egbert could divine for himself. Those long dead did not usually reappear without warning, but at the same time something deep within him was stirring – the passionate emotions that had lain dormant for so many years were awakening anew on seeing Bella's face again; the sensation was overwhelming and he could not put into words the depth and complexity of the sentient turbulence that he was experiencing.

"Why? What's happening?" he managed to say, although he didn't know where he had managed to find the words from in his bewildered state of mind.

"The lines are blurring," said Isabella. "What were once the boundaries of existence are slowly being erased. Something is changing; something that was not meant to be changed."

Egbert could not understand, and he did not want to try. Isabella was here with him again, surely that was all that mattered. How could that be a bad thing?

Liquid began to pool under Isabella's lids and Egbert realised that he must have been speaking his train of thought aloud.

"This isn't the end," Isabella said. "This is only the beginning. There is worse to come, Bert, far worse. Something cataclysmic is happening, we can all of us feel it." She looked around, almost as if she was expecting others to appear in the room beside her. "We shouldn't be here, not in this physical realm."

Egbert suddenly realised that the 'we' to whom she was referring must mean others long dead. Did that mean that his fellows were meeting with the ghosts of lovers lost as well?

"Something beyond our control…" Isabella shook her head. "Someone beyond the restraints of life and death is manipulating the world in a way that was never meant to be." She looked down at the floor for a moment before bringing her brilliant azure eyes up to meet his again. "I shouldn't be here, who knows how I might have upset an already delicate balance... But I had to speak to you, to warn you… I cannot influence these present events. You need to be ready."

"Ready for what?" asked Egbert, breathless with conflicting and confusing emotions all competing for dominance in his mind.

"For whatever's coming." Isabella took the smallest of steps backwards, indicating that their short-lived conversation was drawing to a close. "Darling, I should go…"

"Stay," he choked. "Don't leave me again."

"I never left you, Bert," said Isabella quietly, a sweet smile breaking over her worried face. "Not in that way. I'm always here." Her fingers stretched out to within a hair's breadth of his chest, drawing away again in one fluid motion. "I'm always watching. I'm just not always… _here_."

Almost as if he was mesmerised, Egbert reached out a hand towards Isabella, his limbs moving of their own accord without his commanding them. He didn't want to touch her – not for any physical reason but because he knew that as she stood there, so wonderful a physical representation of his long-lost love, she was perfect, like an iridescent bubble, and if one touched a bubble then it burst, vanished into the ether, ceased to exist. He wanted to preserve Bella for as long as possible; he did not want to be the one to bring their all-too-brief contact to a premature end. Isabella brought her palm up to meet his, an ironically Shakespearean gesture given the tumultuous course that their love had taken during its vital hours.

"Della." Egbert began to speak again as the thoughts suddenly flashed across his mind. "Have you seen her? She's…"

Isabella nodded, her smile becoming ever wider and her eyes filling with tears of mingled happiness and sorrow.

"I've seen her, Bert. I'm so glad you finally got to meet her."

There was barely a quarter of an inch between them now, and they were still moving on their inevitable path towards physical contact. Egbert wanted to pull away but he was unable to, and something in the back of his mind began to panic. He didn't want Isabella to leave; he had waited for over twenty-five years to see her again and he could not let her slip away, not when there was so much that would be left unsaid because his schoolboy-esque emotions had got the better of him, rendering his tongue twisted in knots and his stomach full of butterflies, just as it had been the first time he had met the young Miss Hallow, almost four decades ago now.

"She's magnificent," he breathed. Since meeting Della, becoming part of her life once she had already formed her own path in the world, he had never failed to be amazed at the fact that this accomplished young woman should be his daughter.

"Of course she is," said Isabella, maternal pride glowing through her delicate features. "She's ours."

Their fingertips touched for the briefest of seconds, causing something akin to a static shock to course through Egbert's veins on the point of contact. Almost simultaneously, Isabella began to melt away into the ether, and a spectacular crash resounded through the house from the living room doorway behind him. Egbert didn't need to look round to know that Algernon would be standing there, the teapot in pieces on the floor around his feet, dark liquid seeping across the floorboards and into his slippers.

"That was Isabella Hallow," Algernon murmured, possibly the quietest that Egbert had ever known him to speak before. He made no reply, his hand still outstretched towards the empty space which the woman who would have been his wife had occupied just moments before. He was focussing on the words she had spoken as she vanished, reaching his ears like a note on the breeze.

_I love you. _

"I love you too, Bella," he whispered.

"That was Isabella Hallow," Algernon repeated. Egbert could detect the astonishment and unease in his voice, and he finally replied.

"I know."

"But she… how..?"

"I know, Algernon," Egbert pressed through slightly gritted teeth, wanting to conserve the memory of the few precious moments he had shared with her for as long as possible without being reminded of the terrible situation that Bella had predicted.

"It's impossible!" blurted out Algernon.

"I know!" growled Egbert, finally turning to come face to face with his shell-shocked friend, who was staring into his living room open-mouthed. Finally the wizards' eyes met, and Algernon's next words echoed Egbert's thoughts exactly.

"We need to speak to the witches."

* * *

**Note2: **Coming up on **TLS**: Five years of history in five minutes, and a contemplative train journey...


	4. Chapter 4

**The Last Stand**

**Four**

Trying to manhandle a cumbersome overnight bag off a crowded commuter train at seven o'clock in the evening was a struggle at the best of times, thought Della Jones, but trying to manhandle a cumbersome overnight bag off a crowded commuter train at seven o'clock in the evening whilst eight-and-a-half months pregnant was nigh-on impossible. Della was on the verge of sitting down in the doorway of the train and crying her eyes out over her nightmarish situation; cursing the hormones that were making her feel so weak and overwhelmed, and causing the heat to pool behind her eyes and threaten to spill out over her cheeks.

"Here love, let me give you a hand with that."

Della could have kissed the owner of the kindly voice, who took the bag from her shaking grasp, allowing her to step off the train with relative ease and breathe in the cool, fresh evening air of the platform. She took several deep breaths to steady herself and looked up to her saviour; a woman nearing middle age wearing a long, generic black mac and waiting patiently next to her, concern colouring her pale features.

"Are you alright?" she asked. "You shouldn't be trying to deal with all this stress, not in your condition." Her voice was sympathetic rather than admonishing, and Della guessed that she too had been through the experience of carrying a baby to term. As thrilled as she was that she was expecting, Della had never been able to quite come to terms with the fact that there was another human being growing inside her. It was true, she shouldn't be travelling, the doctor had advised against anything stressful, but this journey was unavoidable. There was something that needed to be done… The voice of the woman who had assisted her broke through Della's haze of worried thoughts.

"Which connection do you want love?" she was asking.

"Tiverton," Della replied.

"Me too." The woman smiled warmly and inclined her head slightly, indicating Della to follow, and they found themselves making a slow but steady progress across the station to the platform where the Tiverton train would pull in. The small waiting space was crowded; a truly wide variety of people occupying all of the seats. Della sagged slightly; she had been travelling all day and whilst most of the journey had been undertaken whilst sitting, it still managed to make her completely shattered. She settled for leaning on the station wall next to a youth in a tracksuit with bright ginger hair, listening to music in headphones so loud that it was a miracle that they couldn't hear it back in Cardiff. Her companion, however, was far more outgoing than the exhausted Della was, and stalked over to stand in front of the young man, clearing her throat loudly and tapping her foot in a manner that reminded Della uncannily of Constance Hardbroom. The boy eventually noted her presence and looked up, pulling the earphones out and treating the rest of the platform to the less-than-dulcet tones of Eminem at more-than-full volume.

"What?" he asked, looking the woman up and down. She was in her early forties, Della would hazard a guess, and her build was not the most imposing.

"Aren't you going to offer your seat to a pregnant woman?"

The youth twisted and looked at Della deliberately before turning back to the woman addressing him, who had now folded her arms and was fixing him with a very unforgiving glare. He lurched up out of his seat and pushed past them with a muttered 'there you go', and Della sat down gratefully. The middle-aged woman smiled serenely and took up Della's position leaning on the wall. Again, Della found herself thinking of the similarities to Constance, and that in turn made her think of why she was making such a strenuous journey at such an inconvenient time.

It had been five years since Della had last had any contact with the witches at the castle itself, but she had kept in regular correspondence with Davina, Mildred and Constance. Whilst studying at Glamorgan for her Master's, Della had met Gareth, who was twenty-seven, studying for a PhD in English Literature and, like Della, had a wizard as a father. When her one-year course had come to an end, instead of returning to her home town like expected, Della had remained in Wales for 'just a bit longer', helping Gareth with his research, establishing her book-binding business as a sideline once more, and revelling in being able to speak freely about her experiences in the realm of magic with someone who knew from personal connections that she was not going completely dotty.

'Just a bit longer' had become… in all honesty she had never moved back home. Well, reasoned Della. When the love of your life proposes to you on the steps of Cardiff cathedral on the day he receives his doctorate, you can't exactly go back to the life you used to lead in an antiquated bookshop, can you? Della and Gareth had married a year later, on Valentine's Day, and a year after that… Della looked down at her rounded abdomen with mingled fear and joy.

Her wedding day had been the last time that she'd had any face-to-face contact with the witches, and it had certainly been a day full of surprises; such as finding out that Gareth's father Terrence, a magician with a penchant for Cuban cigars and experiments involving toadstools, was an intimate friend of her own biological father Egbert. Working commitments prevented Della from seeing her old friends on as regular basis as she would have liked, but there were so many more things filling her life now that she was one of a pair. She had all her old books, and she had found herself a niche that she had previously not considered as a career opportunity before. Having gained the witches' permission, Della had, under an assumed name of course, written a series of children's books based on Mildred's experiences at Cackle's, a series that had proved to be immensely popular, with her publisher already having given her an advance on the fourth instalment. Della would have loved to have been there when the staffroom received its first glimpse of a 'highly entertaining fantasy series set in a fictional school for witches', but on the other hand she was not quite sure what Constance would make of the illustrator's portrayal of her, and Della felt that perhaps she had been safer staying in Wales.

Presently the Tiverton train pulled into the station and Della was dragged forcibly from her daydreaming to face the logistical difficulties of the real world once more. She established herself in a window seat, the friendly woman stowing her bag overhead and settling herself opposite. Della gave her thanks but her speech turned into a yawn and soon enough, as the train began to pull out of the station, her head drooped against the cold glass and she fell into a semi-sleep state, remembering the series of events that had led her to be making the fraught journey to her home town.

The first time that it had happened, she thought that it was just a trick of the light. She couldn't really be seeing what she thought she had seen, could she? The second time, Della thought that perhaps she was going a little mad, and she put it down to the pregnancy hormones affecting her mental state.

The third time, Della knew instinctively that something was wrong, and that the something that was wrong involved magic in some shape or form. So, much to Gareth's disapproval, she had booked herself onto the next train home. She remembered her husband's words as he had kissed her goodbye at the station. He was going to follow her as soon as he could, but there was a series of seminars at the university that had already been postponed twice due to various staff-members cancelling at the last minute, and, being one of the more junior lecturers, his position was on the line should he miss this time. He would be reunited with her in three days, but he had been understandably concerned at her making the journey into the perils of the magical world alone and in such a delicate condition. Della thought back to her previous experiences with the witches and the traumatic ordeals that she had found herself immersed in seemingly every time she visited the castle. She still bore the scar, five years old now, from where the Devil had thrown her across her bookshop in a fit of rage. Whilst occasionally Gareth joked that it was her decision to discharge herself that caused any 'funny turns' she might have, Della could not deny that magic was an extremely dangerous business for those who could not control its power.

These worrying thoughts were still flying through her head as she drifted off to sleep fully, not emerging until a soft, nearly-familiar voice wafted into her ear.

"I think this is your stop, love."

Della's eyes flickered open, but she was alone in the carriage, her companion nowhere to be seen and her overnight bag on the seat next to her. She swung it over her shoulder as best she could and stepped out into the small platform, but there was no sign of the woman who had helped her. She hadn't even asked her name, and she had been such a lifeline. Della walked into the station but it was clear that she was nowhere to be found – the building had shut down for the night, the waiting room and coffee shop closed off and behind shutters, the door to the darkened ticket office locked. There was something particularly unsettling about the empty station, the dimmed overhead lights that showed her the way out providing the only illumination. Della felt her heartbeat begin to pick up involuntary due to her eerie surroundings, and she gave up her search for her travelling companion and focused on the far more pressing task of locating her mother, who had insisted on picking her up from the station after her journey. It was not like Caroline to be late.

"Mum?" Della called, although there was as little sign of her as there was of the other woman. Della turned and made her way back towards the platform; perhaps her mother was waiting there for her. Before she could reach the door, however, the lights flickered and went out, plunging her into an oppressive blackness.

"Mum?" Della called again, fear colouring her words as she made her way blindly towards the doors. "Mum, can you hear me?"

The lights flickered again and Della thought she caught a glimpse of a figure out of the corner of her eye. She shrieked in fright, causing her knees to buckle and give way and she stumbled to the ground. "Mum!" she screamed. "Mum, where are you?"

In her panicked state, Della did not notice the ghostly figure of the woman who had helped her on the train slowly fading into the ether like tendrils of mist as she tried in vain to reach her. She did not hear her speaking, her tone as distressed as Della's.

_I'm right here, darling._

"I'm right here, darling."

Della felt warm hands enclose around her shoulders and pull her into a motherly embrace, and as the lights came back on again, she let her tears of relief fall into her mother's shoulder.

"I'm sorry I'm late sweetheart, there was an accident on the main road." Caroline stroked her shaken daughter's hair. "What are we going to do with you, eh? We said you shouldn't be travelling. Come on. Let's get you home."

Gradually Della got to her feet, not wanting to admit to herself just how much she needed the support of her mother's arm around her waist as they made their way through the deserted station and out towards the carpark.

"What brings you down here at this late stage anyway?" Caroline asked. "You said you hadn't had an argument with Gareth, but it must be something pretty major." She paused and looked at Della in sorrowful earnest. "You're never usually so jumpy, love."

Della sighed.

"I need to talk to the witches," she said eventually. "Just to stop me from thinking I'm going mad." She gave a weak laugh. "I keep seeing Dad all over the place."

Caroline stopped in her tracks, and Della looked at her inquisitively.

"So do I," she murmured.

The rest of the journey back to the car was made in silence before Caroline turned the conversation to lighter topics of gossip concerning the neighbours, but the doubt had already been set in Della's mind. The look in her mother's eyes when she realised that the strange visions of Marlon were not limited to her own imagination had said everything. They were dealing with a phenomenon that was far beyond their control.

* * *

**Note:** Well, it's definitely all go in Cackle's... Tiverton is a real place by the way, it's just down the road from me at uni and its station is Tiverton Parkway. Unfortunately I have never been there, only passed through on my way home, so I don't know if my description is an accurate one.

Coming up on **TLS**: There are more strange occurences afoot at Cackle's, and we learn a little more of Miss Bat's history...


	5. Chapter 5

**Note: **Thanks for the support guys! Here, have the next chapter, and things are starting to get even stranger.

* * *

**The Last Stand**

**Five**

Constance watched as Amelia sorted through the post, late as usual. She couldn't understand the lack of stamina that postmen had these days; when she had first arrived at the castle their letters had always arrived at a sensible time of the morning. In recent years, however, she had found that she was waiting until the school day had finished before there was any sign of communication with the outside world falling into the box outside Walker's Gate. The walk up the mountain was obviously proving too much for the non-magical Royal Mail staff, but on hearing that Lavinia sometimes had to wait till the next day to receive her post in the middle of a village, Constance was somewhat mollified.

The first weeks of the new academic year had passed in their usual whirlwind and the girls were nicely settled into the patterns of the school, ready to begin the long grind that lead up to the Christmas holidays. The chill October winds were just beginning to blow around the castle and they had lost the first tile off the roof, an incident that Davina always greeted with a morbid glee that the autumn was setting in and they would all have to be getting out their thermal underwear soon. Maud had become part of the staffroom furniture far quicker than anyone had expected – she had certainly taken less time to adjust than Mildred had. Constance looked over at the witch who had undoubtedly been her most memorable pupil, deep in conversation with her oldest friend in one corner. She had protested against her appointment, wondering about her capability when faced with the pupils of Cackle's, who, whilst not always troublesome, were certainly never average, but her heart had leapt when she'd read Mildred's application. Thinking about receiving that particular letter brought Constance's mind full circle back to the post that was spread over the staffroom table.

"Anything interesting?" she asked Amelia, who was slicing open letters and discarding the contents with a practiced hand.

"Not as yet," she murmured. "Just adverts for double-glazing and bills, and the usual blurb from our local MP candidates. I wouldn't mind, but the election was last month. Listen to this: 'A vote for Ted Biggins is a vote for change. Vote for the let's all sit down and have a cup of tea party, and let's all sit down and have a cup of tea and talk about it sensibly'."

"They sound good," said Davina, stirring her tea with a sprig of lavender from the vase that had been painstakingly arranged by Mrs Tapioca that morning. "I think I'll vote for them next time."

"Davina, you aren't registered to vote." Constance sighed. "There was a mix up on the form when you thought that you were trying to win a free broomstick from Witchcraft Weekly."

"I never heard back from the competition people," grumbled Davina, taking a sip of the tea and nearly getting the lavender up her nose. Constance rolled her eyes and Amelia hid a smile in her own cup.

"Other than that," the headmistress continued, "I can't see anything… hang on, what's this?" She pulled out two smaller envelopes from the midst of the election spiel. "There's one for you Constance, and one for all of us. Both handwritten."

Constance reached over and took the letter, studying it carefully whilst Amelia opened the other one and skimmed over the text. Constance's own envelope was a small square of heavy cream paper, embossed with a gold watermark that Constance couldn't quite place. The handwriting was in a sparkling black ink, extremely beautiful calligraphy addressed to _Miss C P Hardbroom, Deputy Headmistress of Cackle's Academy_. It was sealed with gold wax, and the stamp was familiar, but… Something about it caused Constance unease. She tried to remember where she knew it from, and why it was causing her such an unwelcome feeling of disturbance. She had just been thinking, that morning, that there was as yet no sign of the terrible situation that Amelia's dream and Davina's phantom hedgehogs had been a pre-cursor to, but she thought that she might just have found it.

"Oh my…"

Constance looked up at the headmistress, who was rereading tightly packed script in a familiar purple ink.

"That's Della's handwriting," said Mildred, coming over from the other end of the room to read the letter over her shoulder. "What's up? I thought she was in Wales… She's going to have a baby any minute."

"She's back in the town," said Amelia. "Or at least, she should be by now. She says she's coming back, she needs to talk to us about some 'funny goings on' as she calls them."

Constance raised an eyebrow. She had an idea of just what these 'funny goings on' might be, and she was disheartened by both the fact that they could offer no consolation to their young friend, and by the fact that the mysterious events had not been limited to their own small vicinity.

"Is she alright apart from that?" asked Maud, leaning across the pile of crumpled envelopes to try and divine what was written on the page.

"I think so… she doesn't say. I daresay we'll find out soon enough. She'll come and see us tomorrow, I expect, if she arrived tonight."

Unconsciously, Constance looked out at the darkened sky, thinking of the perturbed young woman out there, affected by the chain of events set into motion all those years ago in the ninth circle, but unable to protect or prepare herself in the way that the witches could. Presently she realised that the headmistress was talking to her.

"Constance? What's your letter? It looks official."

Constance hastily flipped the letter back over and looked at the strange seal for a moment again. Still unable to recall where she knew it from, she opened the envelope and slid out a single square of thick cream card, decorated with the same seal and watermark as the envelope. The letter head immediately told her why the markings were familiar, and Constance felt the colour drain from her face.

"It is official," she said quietly. "It's from the Joint High Council."

There was silence in the room, the gathered staff all casting worried glances at each other and trying to avoid Constance's gaze. Even Imogen knew the murky history of the JHC, the shadowy body that had ultimate authority over the magical world. For many decades now, ever since the massacre that had claimed the lives of so many magical Liaisons – the massacre that officially never took place despite all the evidence to the contrary – the High Council had seemingly faded into the background, only coming out of the woodwork when something major needed to be ratified by the 'powers that be'. Some younger witches had even forgotten, or at least never learned of, its existence, taking the Witches' Guild and all its various branches – the League of Potioneers, OFWITCH and the like – as the only governing body that magical women had to answer to.

"What is it?" asked Mildred. Constance didn't reply, taking the time to reread the short message. When she tried to speak the words aloud, she found that her throat had dried up and constricted against the passage of sound. She settled instead for turning the card over to Amelia and steepling her fingers together as she stared down at the table, trying to make sense of the deceptively simple words that had burned their imprint into her mind as soon as she had read them.

_Office of the Joint High Council of Magical Arts and Sciences. _

_Dear Constance_

_We have the greatest pleasure in extending to you this invitation to join the Joint High Council of Magical Arts and Sciences. Over the years we have been witness to some truly extraordinary feats of magical accomplishment on your part and we feel that your talents would make an excellent addition to our ranks within the Council. We shall be sending our representative, Professor Michaela Ravenswing, to discuss your appointment on Thursday 15__th__ October at 3 pm. _

_We look forward to welcoming you into our association, and we hope that you will accept this great honour. _

_Yours sincerely_

_A Albtraum _

_Joint High Council Appointment Officer_

"Well." Amelia said nothing more, placing the card back on the table in front of her deputy and looking up at her. "That is… unexpected news."

"You'll have to give up teaching," said Davina quietly from her chair, which she had sunk heavily back down into having crossed the floor to read the ominous missive with Maud and Mildred.

"Not necessarily," said Constance stiffly. There was something about the letter that did not strike her as quite right, something in the elegant cursive on the page that stirred memories deep inside. It unnerved her, and she was having trouble pinpointing exactly why. Either way, the letter arriving out of the blue in itself was highly suspicious. It took years to become appointed to the High Council, normally after several pleas and rejections on the part of the appointee. "I could refuse the post."

Davina shook her head.

"You can't refuse the High Council," she said. "Once they want you, you're in for life. _We hope that you will accept this great honour_… It's an order, not a request, Constance."

Constance shivered. Davina's words were completely in earnest, her eyes fearfully serious. This was not the speech of a woman with slightly less than a full quotient of marbles; Davina was the only member of their company who had lived through the massacre forty-five years previous as a fully active witch, Amelia having still been learning the craft at the time and the others not even born. She was the only one of the gathered witches who had witnessed the true power of the organisation that was, to the younger women, nigh-on mythical in its reclusiveness.

"But it's impossible, surely?" said Amelia. "You have to be part of the Witches' Guild before you can be part of the Council – you have to work your way up through the ranks."

"She _is _part of the Guild," said Davina gloomily. "She's a potions teacher. All senior potions teachers have to be a member of the League of Potioneers before they can practice. The League is part of the Guild."

Constance reached into the handbag by her feet and pulled out her purse, extracting the deceptively simple piece of card that named her as a subscribed member of the League that controlled her line of work. Her name and date of qualification – these were enough to condemn her to the confines of the Joint High Council. She shook her head. There was something extremely wrong about this affair.

"I still thought that you had to be part of the Guild committee itself before you could be elected to the High Council," said Amelia, looking to Davina for confirmation. The older witch bit her lip, but her eyes gave her away.

"Usually yes," she said. "But there are always… _special cases_."

"Davina," said Maud, going over to the former chanting teacher's chair and leaning on the arm. There was something else in Davina's eyes, thought Constance, and her blood ran cold when she realised what it was. It was pure, unbridled terror. "Miss Bat, what's wrong?"

Davina opened her mouth to speak before closing it again, repeating this a few times before she finally seemed to draw herself up to her full, if diminutive, height and composed herself.

"My mother," she said. "She was invited to join the High Council, although she wasn't a Guild member as such. She was part of a tiny affiliated department, proof-reading magical recipe books. They said she had potential." Davina shrugged, but her shoulders were shaking. "She joined the Council and I never saw her again… Not that I wanted to, after the massacre…"

Davina fell silent, and the gathered staff made no sound either. Maud wrapped her arms around the elderly witch's shoulders rubbed them sympathetically.

Constance looked down at the invitation card in her hand and back at Davina. She often talked about her grandmother as a large part of her childhood and upbringing, but Constance had never once imagined that it was because she had grown up with her grandmother after her mother's disappearance. Other memories stirred in the back of Constance's mind. The JHC Massacre, that had claimed so many innocent lives, was living proof that the Council had absolutely no moral reservations when it came to disposing of anyone who could possibly threaten their power.

Could it be that the Council thought that Constance was enough of a threat that they wanted to get rid of her? Constance knew that she was powerful; it was an accepted, although unspoken, fact that she was the strongest witch in the school, but surely that was not enough to warrant her removal by the greatest powers in the land? She turned the square of card over and over between her fingers, the action mirroring the thoughts that were tumbling over and over through her mind, making no sense, serving only to cause the acidic taste of fear to bubble up under her tongue.

"The fifteenth," said Mildred, looking over her shoulder. "That's the day after tomorrow."

No-one spoke. Constance looked at the names on the card, wondering why there was something so familiar about them.

_Michaela Ravenswing. A Albtraum._

For the first time in five long years, Constance Hardbroom found herself experiencing a debilitating fear of the unknown.

* * *

**Note2: **And I think you know what I'm going to say now... If you can't leave a review, I will accept Viennese Sachertorte and a cup of tea (black, one sugar) instead.


	6. Chapter 6

**Note:** I have only just realised how much I owe to a book that gave me inspiration for **Inferno **and **Pandora**, and I've never mentioned it, so I will do so here:

**Disclaimer:** A lot of credit for inspiration needs to go to **Point Horror: Demon** by **Samantha Lee**. It is a good book and available on Amazon.

* * *

**The Last Stand**

**Six**

Egbert materialised outside Walker's Gate just after darkness had fallen fully, and he waited for a few moments to allow Algernon to arrive next to him.

"Shall we?" he asked once the other wizard had come onto the scene.

His friend nodded to him and they knocked on the door with their staffs, the sound echoing through the castle. Even through the thick walls and across the courtyard, Egbert thought that he could hear the excited whispers of the girls who had not yet dropped off to sleep, wondering who could be coming calling at this time of night.

Constance Hardbroom was thinking along similar lines, her mouth set in a fierce line as she appeared outside beside them.

"What time do you call this?" she asked, her voice nothing above a dangerous hiss.

"I'm not sure," said Algernon, looking into the sky to try and gauge the time from the moon. Constance rolled her eyes with an expression of disgust, and Algernon coughed, looking down at his feet awkwardly. Egbert turned his head on one side, looking at Constance in the dim light. There was something different about her. Her usual formidable stance seemed to be hunched, tense, and her eyes were constantly moving, darting around her surroundings as if she was looking for something. In all his years of her acquaintance, Egbert had never known Constance to be so openly paranoid, so jumpy.

"Well?" she asked, her voice almost despairing. "What do you want? Why have you decided to come here in the middle of the night and wake up all our girls?"

Her voice raised in pitch as she spoke and her anger increased.

"We need to speak to you, and Amelia," said Egbert. His eyes narrowed. "Constance, has something happened? Is everything alright?"

"Everything's fine," she snapped. "Could your little mission not wait till morning?"

Egbert paused. Theoretically there was no urgency; there were no lives in immediate danger, there was no evidence of the magical world being on the verge of implosion. Isabella's words, however, were still playing heavily on the back of his mind. Something was coming, and he had no idea what the something was or when it might be coming. Whilst there was not as yet any evidence of a terrible situation being about to unfurl, Egbert did not know when such evidence might arise, or whether it would be too late to avert disaster when it did so. He stood by his decision to come straight to Cackle's to warn Amelia and seek her consul.

"No," he answered Constance's question. "This is an extremely important matter."

Constance worried her bottom lip between her teeth unconsciously, and Egbert wondered at the change in her demeanour. Despite her protestation to the contrary, he was sure that something had occurred to unnerve her, and this only served to unnerve Egbert himself. Of all the magicians he knew, both witches and wizards, Constance was without a doubt the most stoic. If something could unseat her in this way, then it must have been a momentous happening.

"You'd better come in," she said, her clipped tones not quite able to mask the faint tremor that resounded through her voice. She opened the gate for them and Algernon and Egbert followed her inside without another word. Whilst Egbert trusted Constance's common sense implicitly enough to know that she would have told him immediately if something dire had been amiss, her behaviour was continuing to puzzle him, and he wondered in what state he would find Amelia when he arrived in her presence. Finally they reached the staffroom and Constance stood back to let them enter before slipping into the room behind them and settling in her customary place at the end of the table, seeming to shrink into herself slightly.

"Chief Wizard," Amelia began, starting up from her seat and coming forward to greet him. "What brings you here at this time of a night?"

Egbert risked a glance at the wall clock. It was half-past ten, and he knew that the staff would have been on their way to bed before his and Algernon's untimely intervention. In spite of his usual comfortable verbosity, Egbert decided that there was no sense in beating around the bush, not when something so unknowable and so unprecedented was on the brink of possibly causing disaster.

"Amelia, I have received a message…"

He had only spoken these six words before he faltered. How could he go on to tell Amelia that the spirit of his long dead love had returned and warned him that something awful was about to happen? The premise sounded so completely preposterous in his head; if it had not been for the fact that he knew Algernon to have seen her as well then he might well have put it down to a daydream or hallucination.

"You have received a message… go on," Amelia coaxed before drawing up two more chairs for her visitors. "Do sit down."

Egbert sank into the seat thankfully and stared at the darkened window, wondering how to proceed without sounding mad. Algernon saved him the trouble, obviously sensing his discomfort and taking over the explanation of their seemingly out-of-the-blue arrival.

"Ghosts," he said simply.

"Pardon?" asked Davina, looking up from her crochet sharply.

"Ghosts," Algernon repeated in earnest. "Spirits returning to the world of the living have always been a precursor to unprecedented events occurring."

No-one said anything in reply. From the looks of the gathered women in the staffroom, they evidently did not think that Algernon's words were irrelevant.

"I take it that you have also been seeing things that shouldn't be there," said Amelia quietly. "A few of us here have been glimpsing the shadows of familiars past in recent weeks, images that no-one else can see," she continued. "At least we know now that it is not limited to our establishment."

"It is not merely glances that could be a trick of the light, Amelia," said Egbert. The memory of Isabella's visit was still vividly clear in his mind. She had been no mere phantom, no mirage. There had been something more about her, something incredibly real. Moreover, Algernon had seen her too. But then, Isabella had always been one to work outside the box; it was one of the things that he had fallen in love with about her. She had said that she had come to him on her specific mission. Perhaps it was this that had caused her to be so much more... visible. He pushed his musings aside and continued. "The dead are returning to the corporeal realm, and they know that something is going to happen."

Constance and Amelia looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to elaborate. Egbert realised that he was going to have to elaborate with the particulars of Bella's foreboding communication and the circumstances in which it had been received.

"Isabella Hallow," he said quietly.

Immediately the atmosphere in the staffroom changed. Whilst all the witches were aware that Egbert and Isabella had been a couple at one point, it was a fact that was often glossed over, pushed to the back of people's minds. It had no doubt come as a surprise for them to be reminded of it so suddenly, and in such a precarious situation.

"Go on," said Amelia, her voice betraying nothing except inquisitiveness, an earnest desire to get to the bottom of the unnerving mystery that they were mired in.

"She appeared… She had a message. Something's changing, she said, something beyond the boundaries of life and death. That's why the spirits, shadows, ghosts… whatever you want to call them. That's why they're returning."

It felt strange to be imparting this knowledge to the others, thought Egbert. It was almost as if he was laying his private contemplations on the line for all to see. Having kept Isabella a secret for so long during their life together, it was like he was betraying a confidence to be discussing her, and her divinations, with the witches so openly. It could not be avoided, however. They were all embroiled in these changing circumstances, and if the previous times that they had found themselves flung together like this were anything to go by, they would require every possibly scrap of information that they could in order to fight whatever malicious force – for Egbert was sure that it was a malicious force – that threatened them this time.

"Something that transcends the boundaries of life and death…" Mildred was thinking aloud, mulling over the possibilities as she absent-mindedly doodled over a spare scrap of paper. Out of the corner of his eye, Egbert saw a tiny charcoal bird lift off from the page and flutter through the slight crack in the window into the night. He cast a quick glance to the right and took in Constance, wondering at her subdued manner tonight. Was it merely the news that something was about to happen, and that the something was likely to be unfriendly? No, there was definitely something else colouring her demeanour, it had been clear as soon as she had first appeared. He pushed the thought to the back of his mind as best he could; he had to focus on the matter at hand.

As Algernon had said, the dead returning to haunt the world of the living was the stuff of ancient lore, and always had been. It was always an omen, and generally a bad one. But for one of those returning spirits herself to warn them that something terrible was about to happen, well, that was something completely different. What could possibly exist that transcended every boundary, that did not work within the normal parameters of magic? There had to be something, but the thought was too astronomical to try and contemplate. It was as if someone had told Egbert that the world was actually flat rather than round, or that blue was pink…

Surprisingly enough, it was Davina who offered the suggestion, her fluting voice trembling as she spoke.

"I know what it is," she said softly. "At least, I know what it could be." She looked around at the others for assurance and continued. "The Devil."

If there had been quiet in the room before, it was nothing compared with the utter silence that encompassed them now.

"It makes sense," said Mildred weakly. "An immortal demon. He wasn't born and he won't die, so he's beyond the reaches of life and death."

"Surely there must be something else." Amelia's voice was almost pleading, as if she was willing the outcome to be anything but this. Egbert couldn't say that he blamed her; the Academy's previous dealings with the Devil had been traumatic enough, and to be told that they were possibly looking at a third encounter was not something that anyone wanted to hear. At the same time, it was this track record that made Davina's suggestion all the more plausible. Bad things had a horrible tendency to come in threes, and it was with a horribly twisted logic that the Devil would complete a trilogy of meetings with the witches. But what, precisely, were they to expect? Was the Void going to be opened again? Would the castle be dragged to the ninth circle once more? He thought back to Isabella's words, hoping to glean something more from her message. Maybe there had been a cryptic meaning behind the words that she could not impart to him completely for some reason.

_What were once the boundaries of existence are slowly being erased… Someone beyond the restraints of life and death is manipulating the world in a way that was never meant to be…_

The boundaries of existence… The boundaries between the physical and the metaphysical… The boundaries between life and hell…

It hit him then, a sharp realisation so terribly clear that he didn't know why he hadn't seen it as soon as she said it. Why had it taken him so long to see?

"Egbert?" asked Algernon, no doubt inquiring after the sharp breath he had taken when the idea had first come into his head. "Egbert, are you alright."

"I know what's going to happen," he said, but then he paused. He was going to have to say it, but speaking the awful words aloud made it seem far too real. He took a deep breath and looked into the worried faces of his best friend and their gathered magical allies.

"The Devil has managed to free his true form from its confines in the ice," he said, the fear that his words inspired in the eyes of his listeners cutting through him like a knife. "This was never meant to happen. He was meant to stay imprisoned for eternity, but he has not been. He is planning to return to the realm of the living."

* * *

**Note: **Dun dun dun! To be continued...

*Sips tea.*


	7. Chapter 7

**The Last Stand**

**Seven**

As Amelia had predicted, Della arrived at half past twelve the next day. The girls were eating lunch under the supervision of Maud and the wizards who, Amelia suspected, were doing very little in the way of supervising and more in the way of discussing the terrible events that had been foretold by Isabella Hallow. Amelia herself was sitting in her office, contemplating the same thing as she gazed out of the window when she saw a taxi pull up outside Walker's Gate. A young woman instantly recognisable as Della, despite the undeniable bump she was carrying, carefully got out of the back and thrust a handful of notes at the driver before he executed an awkward twenty-six point turn and made a painfully slow descent down the mountain. Della put her voluminous handbag down on the ground and stretched her back. She reached out to knock but before she could do so, the gates were flung open by Mildred, who had obviously been watching from another window, waiting anxiously for her old friend's return. She ran towards her friend and made to throw her arms around her but stopped short and simply looked at her, open-mouthed.

Amelia left her office and went out to meet the school's old ally at a more sedate pace. The two women were already deep in excited conversation, talking about Della's impending new arrival.

"I can't believe it," Mildred was saying. "But then again, I don't think you ever believe it until you actually see it with your own two eyes… It doesn't seem like two minutes since you were throwing your bouquet." She paused and raised an eyebrow. "Well, at least we know that you and Gareth haven't been getting bored on your honeymoon."

"Millie!" Della exclaimed, a furious blush rising in her cheeks. Amelia raised an eyebrow and stepped in to save the young woman from further embarrassment, all the time wondering at Mildred's own development through university and teacher training. It was sometimes hard for Amelia to remember that Mildred was an adult now; she, as all teachers did, still held the most prominent image of a scared little girl who had fallen off her broomstick on her first dramatic day of magical education.

"Della," said Amelia. "It's good to see you again, and I know it's probably been said before, but you are positively glowing."

"No thanks to Mildred," grumbled Della, before she smiled at Amelia, picking up her handbag and holding out her arms for a rather awkward hug. "It's good to see you too Amelia."

Behind the smile and the pretty complexion, Amelia could sense Della's unease: tension at the funny happenings that had been occurring increasingly in her life, mingled with a constant underlying fear of the unexpected at the momentous new turn that her life was about to take. Amelia sighed inwardly. The poor girl didn't deserve these setbacks. She had done so well in carving out her own path away from the perils of the magical world, only to have it nipping at her heels once more. She wondered if she would ever be free of her heritage.

"It was all I could do to stop Mum coming with me," she said, but the weak laugh that accompanied her words was forced and hollow. "I said that there were enough witches in the place to protect me if anything went wrong."

Amelia shook her head with a smile, but there was something in Della's words that kept her on edge. The representative from the High Council was due to arrive the next day, and who knew what the outcome of Constance's meeting might be? There were further worries in the back of Amelia's mind as well, terrible truths that she had barely dared to admit to herself, let alone the rest of her colleagues. Perhaps Della's faith in the magical capacity of the school's staff was slightly misplaced. She pushed the ominous thoughts to the back of her mind and decided to concentrate on the present. There was too much to think about without adding her personal conundrums into the quagmire.

"Come inside," said Amelia, guiding Della and Mildred towards the doors. "We'll have a chat over lunch. Everyone's been waiting to see you again."

It was true, there had been an undercurrent of excitement in the staffroom at the thought of Della's return, but it had been overshadowed by the other shocking news that they had received that previous evening. Although the reason for Della's visit was a foreboding one, it was nice to see her face again, to see that she was keeping well.

They reached the staffroom, and Amelia, Mildred and Della found themselves mobbed by Davina, who greeted her old friend enthusiastically.

"Della!" she exclaimed, the high-pitched exaltation causing her hearing aid to emit a loud squeal, and it took several pokes with her conductor's baton to get it to stop. "How are you? How've you been? How's Gareth? Is he here?" Davina peered over Della's shoulder, expecting to see her husband in the corridor behind her. Amelia laughed. She knew that the real reason that Davina was inquiring after Gareth was to try and glean what little information she could about his father. Having first been introduced to Terrence Jones at Della's wedding, Davina had become a little besotted with the eligible bachelor, although he was several years too young for her. Imogen had taken great delight in teasing her about wanting a toy-boy.

"Gareth's coming," Della assured her. "He's tied up with work at the moment."

"Good, good… Do you want some lunch? I've made stewed eels especially…"

"No thank you," said Della politely, although her cheeks had paled somewhat, and Amelia thought that perhaps the morning sickness was about to return.

"But you need to keep your strength up, eating for two…" Davina was cut off by another voice from the staffroom table.

"Davina, I hardly think that stewed eels are the most nutritious thing an expectant mother should be eating." Constance rose from her place, finally putting down her pencil. She looked tired, thought Amelia. She had no idea how long Constance had spent drafting various things to say to the High Council representative the next day, and she wouldn't put it past her deputy to have stayed up all night working on her arguments. "Della," she said, coming over to greet her friend. A small smile flashed across her lips, but it did not manage to meet her eyes.

"Constance. How are you?"

"Fine," Constance replied, a touch too quickly.

Amelia noted the way that Della's eyebrow arched slightly with the single word, not believing the potions-mistress at all but not saying anything to contradict her. Of all of their various allies and acquaintances, Della had a remarkable perseverance when it came to Constance. If something was wrong, then Amelia knew that Della would doggedly work away at her in her own tenacious manner until she had got to the bottom of the problem. Indeed, Della could get close to Constance in a way that not even Amelia herself could. She thought of their various meetings over the years, culminating in the events that had occurred at her wedding, the last time that they had seen Della in the flesh. Amelia grew somewhat nostalgic at the memories; it had been two years ago but seeing this blushing bride again made it seem like only yesterday.

"I suppose I'd better break my bad news," said Della, with forced cheerfulness as she sat down in the chair that Mildred had drawn up for her. "As lovely as it is to see you all again, this isn't just a social call." She paused, and the nervous tension in her face came to the fore as she thought her way round her words. "Things have been happening, and I've been around magic for long enough to know that it can't just be coincidence. So I've come for your expert opinion."

She looked around the room, almost sheepishly.

"I've been seeing my dad's spirit," she said, never one to beat about the bush. "My mum has too. I was just wondering if you could shed some light on it."

Out of the corner of her eye, Amelia saw Mildred bite her tongue unconsciously, and she felt a similar unease herself. On the one hand, she felt duty-bound to tell Della precisely what her late father's reappearance was an omen of. After all, the ultimate return of the Devil was hardly an event that could be swept under the rug. On the other, Amelia was loathe to burden the young woman unnecessarily with such fearsome tidings, especially when she was powerless to resist or assist in any way.

"It's something bad, isn't it?" Della said dryly when she had received no reply. "I'd already guessed as much." There was a long pause, and Della gave a sigh. "Please just tell me," she said. "I'd rather know what I'm up against."

Amelia glanced across at Constance, and saw the haunted, pleading look behind her deputy's eyes. Constance did not want to be the one to break the news, and Amelia couldn't blame her. The younger witch had enough on her mind at the moment. Amelia knew that it was up to her.

"Della, the shadows of the departed have been returning to various people," she began. "They're a precursor to a… rather more dramatic return. The Devil has freed his true form."

Della was silent, staring at Amelia with a mixture of fear and incredulity.

"Cripes," she said eventually, breaking off her gaze and looking down at the table. "I'd expected just about everything but that. Will the annoying blighter ever take a hint and go away for good? Still," she added, with a false brightness that could not pervade her dejected stance. "I've got you, and between us all we've managed to outsmart him twice."

Amelia swallowed. That was true, but this time around, there were added complications. She sagged inwardly, her mind finally giving up the fight that it had been engaged in for the past five years. She had to tell them. There was no use in labouring under false pretences any longer, not when such a momentous occurrence was about to unfold. With impeccable timing, Maud and the wizards entered the staffroom, the girls' lunch being over. Lessons would start in just a few minutes, but Amelia had to say what needed to be said. After another round of greetings and congratulations, the room fell silent again, and everyone's attention gravitated automatically to Amelia, as the highest authority within the room. Something unspoken was hanging in the air, and Amelia knew that it was time her for to fill the expectant silence.

"There is something that I believe you should know," she began. "As you are all aware, the Devil opened the Void five years ago, and before it was closed again by his own hand, Constance, Mildred and I entered it.

"The Void is the resting place of spent magic, and it exudes a pull, gravitational almost, to absorb this magical discharge into itself. But this magical magnetism does not just apply to cast magic. It can draw magic directly from its source as well. It can drain a magician's magic."

Amelia looked around the faces of her audience. Constance was ashen, her eyes wide, and she shook her head slightly, as if hoping that the action would negate the horrible reality. She had already deduced what Amelia was about to say; perhaps she had even suspected it before. The headmistress forced herself to continue.

"Whilst Constance and Mildred escaped from the Void unharmed, it managed to catch hold of my magic, and it began to siphon it away." She paused, looking at her two fellows. "I don't blame either of you; I entered the Void with the express purpose of surrendering my magic to close it. But as the events occurred, we survived the closing. My magic did not. A large portion of it was drained away in the Void, and it left me with very little. You know that as magicians cast, they use up their inherent magic. I am no exception."

"You mean…" Mildred began, the colour completely drained from her face. "… you're losing your magic?"

Amelia nodded.

"It is not often that a witch uses up all her magic, but it has been known to happen," she continued. "It is not a harmful process, but with our current circumstances, I felt it prudent that I should inform you of my situation." She paused, needing a satisfactory way to finish her painful speech. "I'm sorry," she said simply.

No-one spoke for a long time, digesting the meaning of the words. Amelia realised that it was a lot to take in, especially on top of the previous revelations. It had taken Amelia herself a long time to grudgingly accept and come to terms with her position, and now she was asking the others to do the same in the midst of a highly stressful state of affairs, but she could not keep it from them any longer, not when a magical battle was on the horizon, a battle that she did not know if she could take part in.

"How long have you got?" asked Davina, choked. "Before the magic runs out, I mean."

Amelia shook her head.

"I don't know, Davina. It depends on the magic I use." A muted sound at the other end of the table caught Amelia's attention and she turned to see Constance sitting with one hand over her mouth in an expression of shock. Amelia immediately felt a rush of sympathy for her deputy. With the surprise communication from the JHC, Constance had more on her plate than any of the others, and now this had been thrust upon her.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she asked. Amelia didn't think she had ever heard her outspoken potions teacher sound so small, so vulnerable. However much Constance might exert her authority within the school, it was still Amelia that she looked to as her headmistress and leader, and the thought of losing someone who had been a permanent fixture at the school for as long as she had known it was no doubt a disturbing one.

"I didn't want to worry you," she said gently. It was true. She had always intended to let her staff know when the time was right, to break it to them gently and leave her position with the minimum of fuss, but that was not to be. Constance's eyes were flickering between anger and gratitude, and as she moved her hand and laced her fingers together on the table to compose herself, Amelia could see that she was fighting the urge to simply disappear and give in to the tears that were threatening to fall in private. It had been said, and everyone now knew. It was Della who summed up the thoughts of the stunned occupants of the staffroom with her next words.

"Now what?"

* * *

**Note: **I hope you enjoyed! Coming up on **TLS**: Another blast from the past returns, and brings with them another horrifying revelation...

*Kimmeth digs out her pointing stick, dusts it off and proceeds to wave it in the general direction of the review button.*


	8. Chapter 8

**The Last Stand**

**Eight**

The knock on the castle's main door woke Maud from her mid-morning doze with a start. She had been having a very interesting dream in which she was playing rock, paper, scissors with the Business Secretary, and she had been winning when she had been so unceremoniously dragged from her slumber.

"I wasn't asleep!" she exclaimed to the staffroom at large, but she found that she was alone in there except for the slight snoring from the cupboard, indicating that Miss Bat definitely was asleep. Given the fraught atmosphere that the revelations of the past few days had engendered, Miss Cackle had suspended lessons until the beginning of the next week, leaving Maud with very little to do. Mildred was happily doing something creative in the art studio; what had once been a simple spare classroom had been turned into an Aladdin's cave with Mildred's personality stamped all over it. There could be no doubt that Mildred had already become a well-loved teacher at the school after only a year, and Maud hoped that she would have the same respect herself once this probationary period was over.

The knock came again; evidently no-one had answered the first time. Maud furrowed her brow before pulling herself out of her chair and making her way across the staffroom, peering out of the doors at the deserted corridors. Where on Earth was everyone?

Shrugging, Maud left the room completely and advanced towards the main doors with some degree of trepidation. The only visitors that were expected was the representative from the High Council who had come to speak to Miss Hardbroom (Maud did not think that she would ever be able to call her Constance), and perhaps Della, but Della could not get past Walker's Gate and would not be knocking on the main door. Maud's lip twisted in a grimace as she realised precisely whom she must be opening the door for, and she wondered how she could greet the faceless identity who had become Public Enemy Number One due to the association that she held with taking their formidable deputy-head away from them.

Finally, the bolts undone, Maud allowed the heavy wood panel to swing open, revealing not a stern magician from the JHC but…

"Enid!" Maud exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"

"It's very nice to see you again after all this time too Maud," said Enid with a grin, stepping inside the building and resting her broomstick against the wall.

"I mean, yes, it's good to see you, and how are you, and did you have a good flight from… wherever it is you flew from but still." Maud took a deep breath to cut off her ramble. "This is just a little unexpected, that's all."

Enid shook her head, rolling her eyes heavenwards, but the smile remained plastered over her features.

"Calm down, Maud," she said. "The world isn't going to end. Well, it isn't going to end just yet, anyway." The happy expression faltered slightly. "Miss Cackle told me what's happening. But first, I'll answer your questions."

She fixed her seemingly permanent grin back in place but the damage was done; Maud had seen the fear that she herself was feeling reflected in her old friend's eyes.

"I am fine," Enid continued, "and all the better for seeing you safe and well. And I have flown from London."

"London?" asked Maud in disbelief. Enid nodded in confirmation. "What have you been doing in London?"

"Temping," said Enid. "Fenny and Griz have decided to float their magical make-up business on the International Wizarding Stock Exchange and needed an extra pair of hands in the office. It is officially the most mind-numbing work that I've ever done. I was quite glad to get the message from Miss Cackle."

She stopped deliberately before she could go on to relay the details of the message.

"Could I have a cup of tea, Maud?" she asked. "I've had a long day and it isn't even lunchtime yet."

"Of course, of course." Maud led her friend down the corridors towards the staffroom, but before they could reach their destination they were interrupted by Miss Cackle.

"Heavens Enid," she panted, having obviously run from her office. "I wasn't expecting you this quickly. Mind you, you always did have a reputation for flying rather close to the wind, didn't you? But still, I only sent you the message earlier this morning."

"I know." Enid's smile was reaching Cheshire Cat proportions at this point. "Anything to get out of the daily grind. It's good to see you looking well, Miss." She looked around the corridor. "Is HB around?"

Maud stifled a laugh behind her hand as she watched Miss Cackle raise an eyebrow.

"I am indeed around, Enid Nightshade."

To her credit, Enid did not even flinch as the voice came out of the ether behind her left ear, its owner materialising shortly afterwards.

"It's good to know that some things never change," she said, turning and looking Miss Hardbroom in the eye as much as she could; whilst taller than she had been in her first year, Enid was never destined to have the stature of a supermodel. "It's good to see you as well, Miss Hardbroom."

"Hmm." Miss Hardbroom looked pointedly at the young woman who had, arguably, once been her most troublesome pupil. Maud was learning the facial expressions of the other staff very quickly, but she was still working hard to try and unravel the enigma that was Constance, whose emotions were a closely guarded secret known only to herself and possibly Miss Cackle. Maud couldn't quite divine what she was thinking on seeing Enid again, knowing that she was working a dead-end job in London. Maud loved her friends, and she would never say that Enid was squandering her considerable talent, but she couldn't help feeling frustrated that Enid wouldn't see that she was destined for so much more. She shrugged inwardly. It was Enid's decision, and if working in Fenny and Griz's office was what she wanted to do, then who was Maud to deny her?

"Shall we adjourn to the staffroom?" asked Miss Cackle brightly, indicating the half-open door that they were standing outside. She pushed it open fully and ushered everyone inside.

"ENID!" exclaimed Miss Bat, half-falling out of the staffroom cupboard, her feet tangled up in her many shawls and scarves. "Enid! How are you? How have you been? What have you been doing? Would you like some tea? A scone? A cheese sandwich?"

"I'm very well." Enid laughed, obviously glad to see that despite her increasing years, Miss Bat had not really changed from the loveable soul that they had grown so attached to. "And I would love a cup of tea."

Miss Bat made her way over to the urn but was hampered by a particularly volatile fringe and she tripped rather spectacularly, Miss Hardbroom appearing just in time to prevent her from smacking face first into the staffroom floor.

"Thank you Constance," said Miss Bat, brushing herself down and pretending that nothing had happened in the manner of a cat that had just sneezed and had been rather shaken by the experience. She fluttered across the room and filled the teapot with hot water before throwing in several handfuls of tea leaves and stirring the brew with her conductor's baton before sticking it in her ear absent-mindedly. Miss Cackle hastily grabbed the teapot before she could continue stirring, and began to pour out cups. Maud pulled up her usual chair and indicated for Enid to sit down too. The dark-haired girl gratefully accepted the cup that the headmistress handed to her and fished out a stray piece of straw after adding three sugar lumps – there had been a slight mix-up with the sugar bowl after Miss Bat had coughed whilst casting and ended up pronouncing 'brown' as 'barn'. She was just about to speak up again when the staffroom door opened once more and Mildred ran in, the wizards hot on her heels. As usual, the men had managed to arrive on the scene of a dramatic event just a few moments after it had occurred. They slipped into the room behind the panting Mildred and silently accepted cups from Miss Bat.

"Enid!" Millie exclaimed. "Why did no-one tell me you were coming?"

"I did," pointed out Miss Cackle. "I'm not entirely sure that you heard me though, you were in a slight dreamworld in your classroom at the time. And you," here she looked at Maud, "were asleep."

"I was… resting my eyes," mumbled Maud, who was loathe to admit that she had dropped off mid-morning. In her defence, the staff had recently been up until all hours with the wizards, trying to think up some theory to justify the strange events that were occurring, and more importantly, ways in which they could combat the terrible threat that now hung above their heads.

The start of the serious discussion that was no doubt about to follow was further delayed whilst Enid and Mildred exchanged potted histories of everything that had happened to them between meetings, and finally, everyone was seated and nursing a cup of unspeakably strong tea. Maud grimaced as she took a sip, but it was not the flavour that had caused her reaction: more the thought that the tea would be necessary to keep them level-headed during the fraught hours, days, weeks even, that were about to follow.

Enid was the first to speak.

"So…" She began, looking around the room that brought back so many memories for her. "The Devil is on his way back and Miss Hardbroom is on the hit-list of the most powerful legislative body known to the magical world." She had summed up their awful situation in one simple sentence, and the terse words hit home. There was silence in the room; everyone digesting the full implications of having their problems laid out in front of them so helplessly clearly. "If you will allow me to ask a few stupid questions: how? Why? What? Where? Who? And, for good measure, when?"

"We've no idea," said Mildred weakly. "If you've got any theories of your own feel free to share."

"Pinch your arm and try to convince yourself that it's all just a really bad dream?" Enid suggested wryly. "No, I have no more idea than you do. But they always say that two heads are better than one, so I'm sure that…" She broke off to count the number of people in the staffroom. "Eight heads will be better than seven."

Maud double-checked Enid's figures, amazed that so many people could fit into such a small room. She was sure that there weren't usually this many chairs in the staffroom, and she began to suspect Miss Cackle of having made magical spatial alterations. She shook her head crossly, angry at herself for going off on mental tangents when important things were being discussed.

Just then, Enid gave a small gasp, her usual happy-go-lucky demeanour faltering. Even in the midst of crises, Maud had never known Enid to panic, and this change in her personality unnerved Maud.

"I've just had a thought," Enid murmured.

"I take it that it is not a good thought," said Algernon. Enid shook her head.

"Where was the last place that the Devil's true form was seen?" she continued.

"In the ninth circle," said Algernon, perplexed. "Before Della got the castle back up here."

"No, it wasn't." Enid looked pointedly at Mildred, who upended her teacup in horror.

"It was in the dungeons," she said. "Five years ago at the opening of the Void."

"That's right." Egbert had gone as white as a sheet, not an unreasonable reaction considering that he had been the one to find the rent in the fabric that separated the two realms; the first to witness the Devil's corporeal form in close quarters through the purple haze that had accumulated under the castle.

"What's the likelihood that the Devil will choose the path of least resistance when he returns?" Enid asked.

Maud closed her eyes. The probability was extremely high. As if they did not already have enough to think about with the Devil's reappearance in itself, Enid had just proved spectacularly that there was to be no running from the terrible circumstances that were about to unfold. They were to be right at the very epicentre of the cataclysm. But then again, Maud thought to herself with a slight snort, when had they not been? This time round, as in situations previous, Cackle's was on the very front line of the fight against evil, and this time round, as in situations previous, they would be the first to make their move and play their defence. They had survived so much before this moment, surely they would be able to live through this. Maud's eyes shot open at the fresh wave of optimism that was coursing through her veins, but upon seeing the scared faces of her fellow staff and friends, this began to wane. Yes, the Academy had withstood terrors in the past, but what they faced now was not only unprecedented, but also seemingly all-powerful. Everything that they had battled so far paled into insignificance next to the threat they now faced. With Miss Cackle's waning magic and Miss Hardbroom under threat from the JHC, who knew whether they would be able to stand strong?

The silence that had fallen with Enid's words remained, all-encompassing. One-by-one, the other occupants of the room made their excuses and left until only Maud, Enid, Mildred and Miss Cackle remained.

"Oops," said Enid, although her voice carried none of her usual humour. "Open mouth, change feet."

Maud managed a weak smile. Enid's blunt manner had got her into trouble many times in the past, but it was better to have the revelations out in the open. This way, they could prepare for what was to come. The only question was, how could they do so?

* * *

**Note: **Before anyone asks, yes, Maud's dream at the beginning is based on one I have had myself. Just after the election I had a number of strange dreams involving rock, paper, scissors and Mr Cable. Make of that what you will, and don't forget to review!


	9. Chapter 9

**Note:** Well folks, things are hotting up! Enjoy the latest offering.

* * *

**The Last Stand**

**Nine**

Constance was pacing up and down her bedroom floor in her bare feet – not wanting to cause a disturbance to those in the rooms below her lest they investigate the noise and find her up here walking off her nervous tension. Pacing was something that Constance did often, and usually unconsciously; a way of displaying agitation or anger; a way of concentrating on a problem; or, as her goal was at that moment, a way of working through her fears. The staffroom was always a much better place to stalk up and down; it was larger for a start, and there was usually someone in there that she could air her grievances to. Today, however, Constance most definitely did not want to run the risk of having an audience. The fewer people who saw her in this vulnerable state, the better. She knew that she had not been herself for the past day or so since she received the letter, and she knew that people had picked up on it, so she was horrified to think of what their opinions and conclusions would be if they could see her in her current state of quiet dread.

For it was dread that she was feeling, there could be no doubt about that. Constance had never given much thought to the shadowy High Council one way or another, but now, the more that she realised how little she knew, and the more that she thought over Davina's ominous words, the more she became afraid. If the JHC wanted someone, then they would take them, by hook or by crook. Constance simply would not allow that to happen. She would not let herself be seduced over to the 'dark side', as her colleagues had come to call it. Not that she ever expected to be tempted in such a way, but Constance knew that one could never put too much faith in one's self-control. Her nervousness at the present time was a case in point. On any other occasion, she could have carefully shut away her emotions and gone about her day in her no-nonsense manner, treating the impending visitor as a mere inconvenience in the overall unfurling of her life.

Suddenly, she heard a knock at the main doors of the castle; a thundering, imperious knock that demanded to be attended to. The noise caught her off guard and she gave an involuntary squeak as she tensed, before shaking her shoulders and scolding herself for such timidity. There could be no doubt as to who this latest visitor to the castle was, and grimly, Constance put her boots back on and left her room, ready to meet her fate.

"I don't-a know," grumbled Mrs Tapioca as Constance passed her on the way down the hall. "It's-a like Picadilly Circus today. People coming and-a going, the door going-a every five-a minutes!" The knock came again, louder this time, and the cook shouted to the person on the other side. "Keep-a your hair on! She's-a coming!"

Constance managed a fleeting smile at Mrs Tapioca's down-to-Earth commentary, privately glad that the mysterious figure on the other side of the door would not be able to hear her through the heavy panelling. With her heart pounding in her ears, Constance opened the door to come face to face with the woman who had been sent to speak to her. She blinked, scarcely able to believe her eyes.

"Professor Ravenswing?" she said, incredulous. Now she knew why the name on the card had seemed so familiar. Professor Michaela Ravenswing had been her tutor during her short tenure at Weirdsister College, and here she was again, a quarter of a century later, looking almost exactly the same as she had done when Constance had last seen her – the day that she had announced her decision to transfer to the WTC.

"Yes, it's me, Constance," said Professor Ravenswing. "I must admit, I thought you might have remembered me, but then again, it has been a long time. Twenty years, is it?"

"Twenty-five," murmured Constance, standing back to allow the short woman into the building.

"You were so young then, so full of life and potential. And now look at you! I always knew you were destined for good things, Constance. Your decision to leave us was most unexpected, but I'm sure you had your reasons."

Constance did indeed have her reasons, reasons that she had never admitted in their entirety to another living soul, and despite her precarious situation, she was not going to break a two-and-a-half decade silence for an inquisitive ex-lecturer.

"Well, you know why I'm here, of course," Professor Ravenswing continued, turning to her ex-student with a positively luminescent smile spreading over her features. "Congratulations on your invitation to join us, my dear! There's no need to look quite so sombre; I know that being appointed to the Joint High Council is not an issue to be taken lightly, but it is an occasion to be celebrated, not mourned. Now, is there anywhere that we can have a little chat?"

Constance nodded mutely, gesturing down the corridor towards the staffroom and following her former tutor's pattering monologue as they made their way out of the entrance hall. Constance had a terribly foreboding feeling of walking closer to her destiny with every step she took, and it took several moments for her to realise that they had arrived at their destination and the professor was looking at her inquisitively through her square spectacles.

"Are we going to go in?" she asked pleasantly.

"Yes, of course…" Constance mumbled as she opened the door onto the empty staffroom. She tried to think of how to begin her plea not to be seconded into and lost within the JHC ranks, but all the words that she had carefully rehearsed over the past day had been knocked clean out of her head with the unanticipated arrival of a familiar face. She did not quite know exactly what she had been expecting of a Council representative, but it was most certainly not Professor Ravenswing. Her feelings could be best described as that of an anticlimax; almost as if she had been wishing for a fearsome adversary that she could best, and now she had been denied her prize. She could not formulate an intelligent opening gambit, and settled instead for asking if her visitor wanted a cup of tea.

"Not yet, I don't think," said the older woman cheerily as she made herself comfortable in Constance's chair. This perturbing her already shaken state of mind even further, Constance pulled up another seat and decided that she would be best off waiting for the professor to start the proceedings. She could voice her objections later.

"Now Constance," the other witch began on cue. "This is a very exciting time for both of us; it's not often that someone so young is elected to the Council without having risen through the ranks, but you have so much unexplored potential that they didn't want to waste it, and so here we are today. There's something about you, Constance, something that they've seen and want to nurture."

Constance did not like the notion of her wasting her talents at Cackle's; it brought back far too many memories of Hecketty Broomhead's visits. She had also taken note of the mysterious 'they'. Who were 'they', and why did 'they' want her? She had a strong suspicion that whoever 'they' were, 'they' were not interested in nurturing her potential; more likely the opposite. She did not voice these thoughts to Professor Ravenswing, instead merely nodding.

"Now, no doubt you're feeling quite bewildered by the whole process," the professor continued, either ignoring or oblivious to her addressee's muteness. "I've come to give you all the information you'll be needing, but if you have any questions at any point, don't hesitate to ask."

It felt like being back at university again. Constance did not appreciate being patronised in any shape or form, and she remembered why she had not always seen eye-to-eye with her tutor in the few months of their original acquaintance. Her fear was gradually giving way to mingled resentment and irritation but she kept her tongue, instead shaking her head and allowing the other woman to continue. In the too-long silence before she began her spiel again, Constance's ears pricked up at a sound from the corner of the room. She shifted in her chair to find its source, and her eyes alighted upon the stationery cupboard. Davina was in there; Constance could just make out her silhouette, watching the proceedings through the misted glass. She had had the good sense to remain quiet for the most part, and whilst Constance would normally have been angered by such eavesdropping, at that point she was glad. At least there was someone else in the room bearing witness to the conversation. Through all the other turbulent emotions she was experiencing, Constance could not shake the instinct deep inside of her that kept whispering that something was wrong with the situation. The voice had been gnawing at her ever since she had received the letter, and it was getting exponentially stronger.

"Is everything alright, Constance?"

Constance spun back to see Professor Ravenswing paused mid-enthusing, one hand raised as if she was caught during a particularly exuberant gesture.

"I thought I heard something," she lied quickly. "But it's nothing."

"That's alright then. Now, how about that tea?"

She summoned a teapot and two cups from thin air, which served to puzzle Constance further, since there was already a steaming teapot on the staffroom table; always kept fresh for visitors, both welcome and uninvited. The other woman did not seem to pick up on her unease as she poured out two cups and pushed one across the table towards the deputy-head.

"Now," she said, sipping her own beverage and beginning to expound the virtues of the Council once more. "Your first few weeks would be spent getting to know the system a little better; after all, the Joint High Council has been governing the magical crafts for nearly two millennia now."

Constance was growing to detest the blithe optimism with which the woman was assuming that she would take the offered post and follow along with the JHC rule like an obedient little girl, and she was not sure how much more she could take before she snapped. She knew, however, that such a course of action was extremely inadvisable and so she tried a more underhand tactic; playing the Council at their own game.

"Has anyone ever refused an invitation to join?" she asked, trying to keep her tone neutral and disinterested.

"My dear, why would anyone want to?" Ravenswing's smile did not falter. "Drink your tea," she added. "It'll be getting cold."

Perturbed, Constance pulled the saucer towards her, although she did not intend to put the liquid to her lips. Something in her former tutor's manner was making her wonder if she could truly trust this woman as much as her memory was telling her to.

It was at that moment that Davina chose to make her presence in the room known. The cupboard erupted into an almighty cacophony, and Constance whirled round in automatic reaction to the noise. The doors were rattling and Davina was hollering as loudly as her elderly lungs would allow. The wood and glass of the cabinet doors muffled the sounds and merged the words together, but Constance was certain that she had made out the frantic sentences 'not the tea!' and 'let me out!' The cupboard had been locked from the outside, and Constance knew who had done it…

She turned back to face the woman that she now knew to be an enemy. For the first time, Professor Ravenswing's smile faltered.

"The sordid and underhand dealings that the council has been involved in over the years are no secret, no matter how much it denies them," Constance growled. "I have decided that despite their kind invitation and flattering interest in my magical progression, I am going to have to courteously decline their offer of a position and disassociate myself from their acquaintance."

"Constance…" her former tutor began.

"I think it would be best if you left now," Constance continued through gritted teeth. "My decision is final. You may tell your superiors that I refuse to be intimately associated with a magical body that can systematically exterminate anyone that it feels is a threat to its credibility and power-base."

"Constance…" said Ravenswing, although Constance noted that it was not with an angered or indeed threatening tone. If anything, the older witch sounded more despondent. "Constance, you can't refuse the High Council."

"Why not?" she spat. "Surely, if they are as democratic as they _claim_ to be, then they would respect my decision to turn down their offer."

It was then that the professor's demeanour changed, as if on a knife-edge. Her sweet expression dropped, to be replaced with a hardened look. Her fingers raised momentarily, and Constance almost did not have time to deflect the spell that had been thrown at her so suddenly.

"No-one refuses the High Council, Constance."

"I do," she growled, casting a spell back that caused her one-time mentor to topple backwards out of her chair. Constance took the opportunity to leave her own seat, backing up towards the door; making for the nearest escape route but unwilling to divert her eyes away from the source of a possible ambush. Ravenswing sprang up, displaying a surprising nimbleness for her comparative age, and she shot another bolt at Constance, this time with a much more malicious intent. She managed to stop the attack before it could reach her, but the force caused her to stagger slightly and lose her concentration. The next flash hit home, and Constance gasped as the impact coursed through her limbs like wildfire. She returned the favour, and above the sounds of the pitched magical battle, she could hear the voices of others outside, alerted by the ruckus. She identified Maud and Amelia, and she could tell that they were trying in vain to enter the room. Of course, if Ravenswing could trap Davina inside the cupboard, there was nothing to stop her trapping the others outside the staffroom.

"Dearie me," said Ravenswing, her voice taking on a different although still very familiar timbre. She no longer sounded melancholy, but more gleefully sadistic as she continued to exchange blows with her former student. She sounded nigh-on possessed. "Antonius will be so disappointed."

It was then that Constance realised it

Antonius Albtraum, the Joint High Council Appointment Officer. Albtraum was German for nightmare, like Pesadilla in the Spanish and Cauchemar in the French. And Antonius could be shortened to Tony…

The Devil was behind it all.

Constance shook her head, refusing to believe it, but the expression on her face betrayed her train of thought to her attacker.

"Put two and two together, have we?" Ravenswing cackled, and in that brief moment of distraction, she took the opportunity to hit Constance with an unexpected spell. The force sent her flying backwards, and Constance saw flashes in front of her eyes as her head hit the stationery cupboard door with a blood-curdling smash. Davina's screams suddenly gained volume and clarity. Her eyes half-closed, she found her vision was swimming in front of her, and she knew that she was on the verge of losing consciousness. She could just make out the figure of the professor looming over her, and if she didn't know her vision to be clouding over, she would say that the woman's form was shimmering, like someone emerging from under a magical glamour of concealment. Behind her, she heard Davina give a final, piercing shriek before fainting herself, thudding against the bottom of the cupboard.

"Ah, Constance," came a male voice, fuzzy in her ears. "We meet again at last. Perhaps this time you won't be quite as… difficult." He tutted. "My dear Connie, it's all for your own good, you know."

Constance felt her blood run cold, and she could fight the onset of enforced slumber no longer. As she drifted into oblivion, she knew that she had been right. The figure in front of her had changed her, or rather his, shape.

Michaela Ravenswing was just a shell. She was the Devil in disguise.

* * *

**Note2: **Dun dun dun! Believe me, that's just the tip of the iceberg...


	10. Chapter 10

**The Last Stand**

**Ten**

Della looked along the long lines of books in the darkest sections of Cackle's library to see if she could find anything familiar from her old stock, most of which was still boxed up in the spare room of her and Gareth's house in Cardiff. They had moved into a larger family home from their two bedroom flat once Della had known that she was expecting, and despite the eight months that had passed, they had still not unpacked fully. Well, thought Della. That was to be expected when two people, both as disorganised as each other, and the majority of whose possessions were books, lived together. Gareth had only just managed to unpack enough of his books in order to decorate one of the bedrooms into a nursery, and Della still wondered at the way that a coat of yellow paint could brighten up a room that had had its window barricaded by six and a half boxes of various editions of Shakespeare's works. She had returned to Cackle's that afternoon in the hope of finding something that she could use to gain a better understanding of the situation that she and the witches now faced.

Selecting a book that she recognised as one of her own, Della pulled the slim volume off the shelf and went to sit down at the table in the centre of the room. She sank into the hard chair with a thankful sigh; even standing for a few minutes tired her out so much these days. It was the bump, she thought, and if the ultrasound scans hadn't proved otherwise, Della would be sure that she was carrying quintuplets. She had no idea that one baby could be so _heavy_. There was nothing that she and Gareth had wanted more than a child to turn their happy couple into a fledgling family, but now that the world was about to end at any minute, Della wished that she had one less thing to worry about in the grand scheme of things. She had hoped that coming to the castle would have settled some of her long-standing fears but it had only served to increase their number. The Devil was returning, Amelia's magic was fading, Constance was on the hit-list of the very council that she herself had been hidden from as a child… was nothing simple anymore?

Della shook her head, immediately reproaching herself for such sacrilegious thoughts. She would never wish any harm to come to her child; the notion of wishing it away from her had left her head as fleetingly as it had arrived. She rested her head in her hands, elbows leaning on the book that had flown from her thoughts for the present time. Why her? Why now? Why couldn't she wake up and it would all be a dream? Della's emotions changed on a knife-edge, her frustration this time directed towards the magical world that she had found herself in. She had never asked for any of this. She had worked so hard to get out of the magical sphere of influence that seemed to follow her around and cause trouble for her wherever she went, and just when she thought that she had escaped her pesky heritage for good, it caught up with her and tipped her world spinning head over heels once again.

So many of the bad things that had happened to Della over the years had been due to magic. She had nearly died in the ninth circle. She'd been attacked by an evil witch and a diabolic demon. And for the first twenty or so years of her life, she had been the helpless victim of so much magicum tempestua that she had unwittingly caused more disasters than she cared to remember. At the same time, however, there were so many good things that had come from her mystical connections. How many times had she laughed at Davina's antics, and how many new friends had she made thanks to her heritage and all those events beyond her control that had led her to this moment?

Della suppressed a howl of indignation. She didn't know what to feel, and she was desperate to feel something in her highly hormonal state. She could go from being happy to being a weeping wreck within seconds, and she could honestly say that this part of her pregnancy would not be missed in any way. Taking a deep breath, she pushed the heels of her hands into her closed eyes, suppressing any tears that threatened to fall, and then she was calm again, pushing her own woeful thoughts to the back of her mind and concentrating on the task at hand. She would not be any use in a physical battle against the Devil, if that was what these strange circumstances were going to come down to; even if she was not expecting then her lack of magical talent left her hopelessly ill-prepared for such warfare, but she could at least make herself useful in other areas.

She flicked open the book on the desk to the index with a well-practiced hand and skimmed down the list of entries until she found the one she was looking for – D for Demon.

"Well, hello you."

The soft voice made Della start and flip the book closed as her hands jumped, catching her thumb in the index pages. The speaker laughed as she gave a muted curse and sucked her bruised appendage, and Enid came into the light, settling herself at the table opposite Della.

"Hello," Della replied once she'd got herself together. "I haven't seen you since…"

"The wedding," said Enid with a grin, giggling to herself at a memory. Della raised an eyebrow. The last time she had seen Enid had indeed been at her reception, where they had only just managed to prevent a full-on food fight from breaking out between the magical and non-magical guests. As fun as it would have been at the time to see her Great Aunt Gladys covered in raspberry pavlova, Della knew that it would only have ended in tears, and she was duly grateful to Egbert and Constance for calming matters before they had got out of hand.

After the necessary preliminaries had been exchanged, and both women were convinced that the other was as well as could be expected considering their perilous situation, the talk turned to naturally more pressing matters.

"Miss Cackle called an emergency staff meeting in her office," Enid explained in relation to her hanging around in the library. "I was invited to join in but I felt like a fraud. I think they're working out a battle plan to save HB from the clutches of the JHC. I'm far better staying out of it, I think. What are you reading?"

Della showed her the book and flipped it back open to the page she needed, but she did not look at it. Of all the witches that she had forged friendships with, she was not as close to Enid as to some of the others, but she knew the younger woman well enough to know the true reason why she was not present in the staffroom. Their eyes met over the pages and Enid looked into Della's neutral face for a moment before breaking away.

"Don't give me that look," she grumbled.

"I was not aware that I was giving you any look," said Della levelly.

"I know you weren't, but you've got that thing… I think it's because you spend so much time around books, you read people like them." Enid sighed. "Ok, so I'm hiding from the others. When I first got the message I was so desperate to get out of the monotony of my everyday life that I jumped at the chance to come back and have a little adventure, but now, I'm not so sure. It all seems so… serious."

"Enid." Della shook her head. She knew that Enid had been thrown out of her higher education establishment on account of too much partying and too little academia, and that she had been working in dead-end temping jobs ever since, shirking responsibility as much as she could. "Life isn't all an adventure."

"I know that now," sighed Enid. "I don't need anyone to tell me that I need to buck my ideas up and start taking responsibility for my own life. I just wish that it wasn't so _hard._"

"This is coming from the girl who passed her Witches' Higher with flying colours and who knows, or at least knew at one point, more experimental spells than the rest of her classmates put together?" Della raised an eyebrow. "I'm not going to lecture you," she added, on seeing Enid's mouth fall open to protest. "I just want you to see how hard it is for me to understand why someone of your talent should be so afraid of the life that's out there for you."

Enid looked up with a sad smile and shrugged.

"Who knows? I always work on the principle that I've left it too late to do any good now."

"Nonsense," said Della briskly. "There's no time like the present. Tell me what you make of that."

She scanned over the words, reaffirming what she recalled from her books back at home, and flipped the book across the table towards Enid, who caught it in a practiced hand before reading it aloud for herself.

"Arguably, the oldest known magicians in the magical compendium are the Devil and the Angel, both formed from the very essence of raw magic itself, and destined in kind to be constantly at war." She looked up. "Well, that makes sense. What's new? Angels and demons have always been in opposition."

"True," said Della, "but read on."

"The Angel and the Devil have always been viewed in popular culture as polar opposites, and their likenesses have been used in opposition since the dawn of time – I just said that! – However, the true story of their nature has been lost to myth. Neither entity is fully detached from the other, and both share traits that are traditionally expected to be found within the other's character. Time and story-telling, however, have never left room for the scandalous possibility of a compassionate demon, nor a vindictive cherub."

Enid looked up at Della again, her eyes wide.

"Does this mean what I think it means?" she asked. "I know, I know, I'll keep reading. You know I've never been one to wait until I had all the facts before I started theorising." She cleared her throat and continued to read. "Despite this mingling of characteristics, the Angel's natural tendency towards what we perceive as 'good' led her to vanquish the Devil, whose natural opposing tendency was towards 'evil'. Different legends have always given different accounts of the Devil's ultimate fate and the means by which it was achieved, but the most popular theory is that given in Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, wherein the Devil is imprisoned in ice in the centre of hell. Other popular literature contemporary with Dante leads us to believe that in order to bring about this imprisonment, the Angel was forced to sacrifice her corporeal form, but being an entity formed from raw magic, she could not truly die."

Enid closed the book and stayed staring at the worn front cover for a long time before speaking again.

"The Angel sacrificed herself to imprison the Devil," she said. "And now the Devil has escaped from his confines." She paused. "I don't know what to make of it."

"I think that since the Angel did not truly die," said Della, carefully giving voice to the theory that she had been forming ever since she had been told the dreadful news of the Devil's ultimate return, "it is high time that she put in another appearance and saved us all from our fate once more."

"Now that would be too good to be true." Enid snorted. "But you never know, we could always try appealing to the Devil's better nature, now that we know he has one. 'Please Devil, don't kill us. We have cookies.' It might work!" she exclaimed, as Della failed to stifle a laugh. Suddenly Enid stiffened, and Della heard her breath catch in her throat.

"What is it?" she asked, very aware that something was not quite right.

"An intense magical disturbance," Enid said. "A pitched battle… sometimes these things catch us unawares, our magic picks up on them."

Della felt fear rise in the back of her throat.

"Do you know where…" she began, but her question was cut off by running footsteps thundering through the library towards them. Maud burst out from between two bookcases and doubled over to catch her breath before pointing in the direction she had just come from.

"You've got to come," she panted. "She's kidnapped Miss Hardbroom!"

"Who, that little old JHC witch?" Enid was on her feet in a flash, Della following suit as quickly as was logistically possible.

"Yes, I think so, who else could it have been? We heard them going at it hammer and tongs, but by the time we managed to get in there, they were gone!"

Enid and Della followed Maud through the library again, and a shout bordering on a screech echoed through the walls of the Academy.

"Maud!" cried Mildred's voice. "Maud, Enid, where are you?"

Enid and Maud took off at a run after their friend's voice and Della followed at a more sedate but still brisk pace. She found them in the first floor corridor, looking out of one of the windows in a shell-shocked stillness.

"Well," Della heard Enid say as she came up behind them and the witches parted to let her see what had gripped their attention so wholly. "This cannot be a good thing. I suppose I'd better start baking those cookies."

Della peered out of the window, and gasped at what she saw.

* * *

**Note: **I told you last chapter that it was just the tip of the iceberg, and now you're going to have to wait until the next chapter to get the rest of the story! Te he he!

Please note that updates will be quite erratic for the next couple of weeks: this weekend I am visiting relations and going to Warhammer World in Nottingham which I am very excited about. (This will mean nothing to most of you, but believe me, it's a big thing for me.) The weekend after next I am off to Yorkshire for my summer holiday proper. Hopefully my writing zen will return!

And I keep forgetting, but thank you to all you reviewers!


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer:** I lay claim to the character of **Aloysius Pike**, who you shall meet in due course.

**Note: **Erm... *Kimmeth racks brain for something to say* Enjoy!

* * *

**The Last Stand**

**Eleven**

Amelia was surprisingly calm. In fact, her manner was so eerily calm as she opened the staffroom cupboard doors onto Davina's gasping, hysterical cries that she wondered if she was even awake or if this entire encounter was merely a terrible dream, in which she had been replaced by a far more efficient version of her conscious self. She suspected, in all honesty, that she was past the point of panicking; that so much had happened in the past few days, in the past few hours even, that her mind had simply stopped processing it, skipping the 'worry' stage and focussing instead on solving the problem at hand. Like someone running from an attacker with no shoes on does not feel the pain in her bare and bleeding feet until she is safe and sound, Amelia was certain that once their situation had calmed down, the thoughts of 'what could have been' would cause her to break down.

"It was him!" Davina was screaming as Amelia helped her to her feet. "It was him! He grabbed Constance and vanished and he spiked her tea and she hit her head on the cupboard and…"

"Davina," said Amelia, but it was clear that her reassuring, soothing tone was not having its desired effect. "Davina!" she finally exclaimed, shaking her friend's shoulders firmly. This brought the older witch to her senses and she fell silent, staring at Amelia with wide, frightened eyes as her breath came in rapid pants, bordering on hyperventilation.

"Davina, who is 'him'?" Amelia asked. "The High Council representative was a woman, or so we were led to believe."

Davina shook her head.

"No, I mean yes, no… Yes, she was a woman to begin with but then she changed… It's the Devil, Amelia!"

Amelia felt ice flood through her veins, and the worry that had been so strangely absent when she had entered the staffroom now made itself very apparent. The picture was becoming horribly clear, with the out-of-the-blue invitation and Constance's unprecedented appointment… The Devil and Constance had unfinished business, twenty-five years of it, and Amelia dreaded to think what the outcome of their latest meeting would be. She cursed herself as her mind ran back involuntarily to their last meeting, the night of the Void, half a decade ago. When the Devil had left them for what had appeared to Amelia to be the final time, she had expressed this to Constance, and now she was ruing her words. 'It looks like he's gone for good', she had said. She had been terribly wrong, and it pained her to imagine what Constance must have felt when she had realised that her superior had lied, however unwittingly.

Amelia was cut off from her train of thought by a scream resounding through the castle. It was Mildred, calling for Maud and Enid. Something had happened, something on top of Constance being kidnapped by malevolent forces. Instead of dealing with one trauma, they were now dealing with two, and from the frantic desperation in Mildred's voice, Amelia knew that the castle was facing a calamity of catastrophic proportions.

Beside her, Davina had fallen mute with fear, and Amelia knew that she was going to have to find her calm, unflappable persona once more and take charge of them both. She didn't like to think of how she was going to try and defend her school with her waning magic and without the seemingly constant support of her deputy by her side, but she knew that she had to do it. There was simply no alternative.

"Let's go," she said to Davina, rushing out of the devastated staffroom with her friend and up the stairs towards the source of the scream. Mildred, Maud, Enid and Della were crowded around one of the windows looking out over the academy's environs, and Amelia hurried along the corridor to the next vantage point. She peered out, already knowing that the shocked silence of the spectators next to them meant something unfathomable was out there, but she was not prepared for the awful vision that met her eyes.

A veritable army was gathered outside the castle, standing perfectly still in ranks and units, like cavalrymen ready to charge. Amelia was sure that she had never seen such a grand gathering of witches and wizards in one place since the Hallowe'en spectacular of 1974, and she had certainly never seen so many of her fellow magicians in such a combative stance. Who were these men and women, and where had they come from? It was Davina who answered the unspoken question, pointing out over the ranks with a shaking finger.

"The JHC," she whispered. Amelia followed her eyeline, out over the lines of long cloaks and robes in majestic colours, to where a flag fluttered in the cool Autumn breeze, moving in the air completely independently of a pole or banner. The insignia was unmistakeable; it was the same watermark that had decorated Constance's letter, and was the seal printed on all High Council-approved correspondence. A crossed staff and broomstick over a smoking cauldron; the emblems of the two separate branches of magic coming together over the one discipline that was common to both factions – potion-making.

"What are they doing here?" squeaked Davina. "What's happening?"

Amelia could not say. She did not know for certain, but she had a horrible feeling that would not go away. The JHC's reputation was the stuff of legend; it was famed for its iron-clad denial of terrible things that had most definitely taken place. The massacre of the Liaison children was the example quoted most often due the truly horrific nature of the crime, but there were other incidents that had been swept under the rug with a bluster of official statements and disclaiming of all responsibility. Planned coups being quashed before they had seen the light of day, mysterious disappearances of outspoken magicians… It all added up to the fact that the witches and wizards of the world were far further under the control of the JHC than any one of them liked to admit, and anyone who posed a threat was a potential target. The High Council had gathered outside Cackle's, and its intentions were fast becoming clear.

But something didn't add up. On the face of it, it was very simple: the Council had been mobilised in order to destroy Cackle's, for reasons that Amelia could not fathom. The warning had come in the form of Constance's letter: they could not bear to see her talents wasted in the massacre and so they had invited her to join them instead.

But the Council representative had not been a Council representative. She had turned out to be the Devil. Was it merely a coincidence? Had he intercepted the letter, disposed of the real representative and taken her place? There was a vital piece of information missing, and Amelia simply couldn't work out what it was.

Before she could think on it any further, the ranks had broken below her to allow one wizard to pass through. He stood out a little way in front of the others, looking up at the faces in the window who were scrutinising his every move.

"The Joint High Council of Magical Arts and Sciences requests an audience with Miss Amelia Cackle," he called, his voice magnified through magic so much that it reverberated in Amelia's ears.

"I'm here," she called, trying to mask the quavering in her voice. "What is your message?"

"My name is Aloysius Pike, representing the head of the Joint High Council. There is a matter of national urgency that needs to be discussed concerning the future of the school. May we speak privately?"

Amelia shook her head defiantly. She had already lost one member of staff that morning; she was not prepared to follow blindly into whatever trap was being laid, for she was certain that it was a trap she would be walking into.

"Anything that you need to say," she began, speaking through gritted teeth, "can be said in front of my staff. And our allies," she added on hearing the slight shimmer of Egbert and Algernon appearing in the corridor behind her and leaning into the window to view the proceedings.

"Very well." Pike held out a hand and one of members of the front rank placed a piece of parchment into it. Amelia took the momentary distraction whilst he unfurled it at leisure to survey the extent of the task force that they were facing. There were at least five hundred in those silent units, and there could be no doubt that all these witches and wizards had been highly trained in the art of magical combat, nay, magical warfare. They were completely regimented and obedient, like an army. Was this all that the High Council truly was? A training camp for the most elite of magical soldiers? If Constance had accepted her invitation to join them, was she merely destined to become one of these cloaked infantry? Amelia shuddered to think.

Presently Pike cleared his throat and began to read.

"Miss Cackle, it has come to the attention of the Joint High Council that there is a rift beneath your establishment. It has also come to our attention that this magic rift takes the form of a portal directly to the ninth circle of Hell, wherein resides the Devil's corporeal form.

"It may come as a surprise for you to learn that in recent weeks, the levels of supernormal activity reported to the Guild and the Council have been steadily increasing, and we have come to realise that this is a precursor to the ultimate return of the Devil's corporeal form. This return is imminent, Miss Cackle, it could happen at any moment. Naturally, the High Council wishes to prevent this from occurring."

Pike paused, licking his lips, and Amelia saw a flicker of something ghost over his expression. It was a kind of hunger, the thrill of the chase almost. He was enjoying this, enjoying drawing out their suspense. Whilst he might only be the messenger, there was something in Pike that was inherently malicious, and in that moment, Amelia could not think of any position that suited the slimy wizard better than the one he held. She was distracted by a tug on her sleeve, and Davina pointed to Pike's staff with a muted squeak. Amelia peered down but she had left her glasses in the staffroom and she could not make out any details. It was at that point that Pike began to speak again, and Amelia focussed on his words.

"We, the Joint High Council of the Magical Arts and Sciences, have come to the saddening conclusion that the only way to prevent the Devil's return through the rift is to open the Void, which is ostensibly the force that fuels the rift. On opening the Void at the point of the Devil's return, the resulting cataclysm would ultimately destroy the Devil. Regrettably, this would also mean the destruction of the castle and its inhabitants." He gave a smile that was more like a terrifying leer.

Amelia's voice was lost in her throat, her tongue struggling to form words in her dry mouth. The castle, gone… Thinking of losing the place that had been her home, her life, for so long, was bad enough, but Amelia's thoughts were focussed on the occupants of the castle, the girls that it was her duty to protect and guard with her life. She accepted the idea of perishing with her school with no fear – she was not the youngest of witches and her magic was fading with every hour that passed – but she could not end the lives of her pupils, and indeed her fellow staff, in such a way.

"Will there be no opportunity to evacuate?" she eventually managed, her voice choked.

Pike shook his head.

"I am afraid not," he said. "A mass exodus from the castle may upset the rift, which is already in an extremely volatile physical state."

Amelia was speechless, powerless. Her mind was blank save for the terrible words replaying themselves over and over through her head. She felt the force of a spell being cast beside her and suddenly the image in front of her became sharper. She glanced to the side and found that Davina had summoned her glasses from the staffroom and placed them on her nose. She pointed once again to Pike's staff, and this time Amelia saw what she was meant to see. Engraved on the staff was a silver pentacle, its points marked with black. It was the stamp of the Devil. Casting her eyes downwards, Amelia saw more markings on the staff, each a terribly familiar shape from the pages of the _Legendarae_, the magical document that had come into their possession five years before. If Amelia had lost the power of speech before, she was now rendered completely mute. The pieces began to fall into place. Constance's disappearance at the hands of the Devil, the return of his corporeal form… Something was still fundamentally wrong, though, and Amelia could not think of what it was.

Thankfully, she did not have to, for another voice, spoke up, a smaller voice with the tiniest hint of a Welsh accent picked up from five years in the country.

"No," said Della simply. "That's not right. To open the Void whilst the Devil is on the point of corporeal return will destroy the castle, certainly, but it will not destroy the Devil. Quite the opposite, in fact. It will clear a pathway to facilitate his return and hasten his progress."

To describe Pike's expression as a glower would have been an understatement. The man's face was a picture of pure evil.

"How did...?" he snarled. Della shrugged.

"The _Legendarae_," she said. "Once the Void was closed all those years ago, I sat down and translated the whole thing. It took me over three years, but it is complete at last."

Amelia did not know how to react. The revelations were too much. The JHC were in a league with the Devil, and they were going to use Cackle's to enable his ultimate return. She wanted to shout, to curse, to scream, but she was frozen in place.

A loud, hollow clapping filled the thick silence.

"Oh, very good. That was very good indeed. And from the non-witch as well. I must say, I am very impressed."

Amelia felt ice flood through her stomach once more as the owner of the horribly familiar voice melted into view.

The Devil materialised beside Pike, carrying the unconscious Constance in his arms.

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**Note2: ***Kimmeth surveys the dropped jaws of her readers.* My work here is done...


	12. Chapter 12

**The Last Stand**

**Twelve**

The panic that Amelia had been unconsciously suppressing began to make itself felt at the back of her tongue. Her immediate reaction to the chilling revelations that had just taken place was to fall into the 'fight or flight' reflex, her body taking care of itself whilst her mind was still trying in vain to process what was happening. Was the Devil behind everything? Were they still in danger from the rift that would enable his complete return?

A small part of Amelia wished that it was all just a dream; that she would wake up and be able to live this day through again. Perhaps then she could have entered the staffroom just a split second earlier, or evacuated the girls immediately when she had cancelled their lessons the previous day. There was no use in dwelling on the perils of hindsight, however: the Devil was outside the castle and he was most definitely not part of a terrible nightmare. The situation was awfully real, and Amelia had to face up to it.

"I wonder what's going through your mind right now," the Devil began, seeming to be genuinely interested in Amelia's thought patterns. "You're possibly wondering why I'm here, although I would have thought that was obvious." He glanced down at Constance in his arms, her height and weight posing no inconvenience for him. "When one rampages through a defeated city, one always takes a little… victory prize. Because oh yes, this is most definitely a victory, Amelia. My true form is returning, and I believe that this moderate gathering of your fellows will ensure that everything goes to plan."

It was in that phrase that Amelia's worst fears came to fruition, and she gulped away her terror before speaking.

"You have taken control of the Joint High Council," she remarked, seeking confirmation. The Devil shook his head and laughed.

"Taken control of the JHC?" he repeated. "Oh dear, Amelia, you are most amusing. No no my dear, I have not taken control of the JHC." He paused for dramatic effect, and Amelia knew what he was going to say a second before he said it. It did not make the revelation any less awful as his words rent the petrified silence in the castle. "I've _always_ been in control of the JHC."

It was so hard to believe, Amelia thought, and yet it made such horrifically logical sense.

"You are shocked, I see, but not completely surprised." The Devil smiled genially. "I believe it would be courteous of me to explain, given that you have been such good sports throughout the rest of my campaign, and we are likely to be the last people that we ever see. But first, a small logistical matter must be attended to. Your lovely deputy is in no way overweight, but one does tire of carrying an unconscious woman around, and I think she may be more comfortable elsewhere."

Constance's prone form shimmered away, and the Devil spread his arms wide. Amelia felt her mouth opening to speak, but she could not form any coherent words.

"Where is she?" she finally spluttered.

"Oh don't worry," said the Devil airily. "She's perfectly safe where she is. Now, we agreed that an explanation was in order, no?"

Amelia remained mute. They had agreed nothing of the sort; the school was at the complete mercy of the Devil from both within and outside. They were trapped, completely helpless. There was no safe haven to be found, and if letting the Devil indulge his liking for the sound of his own voice would by them time, then that was all that Amelia could do.

The Devil took a deep breath and looked around him, like a newly-crowned ruler surveying his realm.

"I was never meant to be trapped in the ice," he continued, and Amelia could hear the intense bitterness in his words, almost akin to a petulant child. "The corporeal world is my true home, and the return is so imminent that I can almost taste it. However, I am getting ahead of myself in my epic and hopefully fascinating saga. Are you sitting comfortably? It is rather a long story." He looked up at the women standing at the windows and raised an eyebrow. "Never mind. I shall begin forthwith.

"For the millennia that I have been imprisoned, I have been able to use this mental manifestation to conduct my dealings in this realm. It is a most useful form, and I did once consider simply forfeiting my quest to be free again and continuing in this manifestation for the rest of my eternity, but there was one pesky little problem. Namely, I always ended up getting my manifestation killed. When one is normally immortal, you see, personal safety is never a very high item on the agenda.

"So I knew that I would have to return my true form, whom all you delightful ladies are familiar with."

Amelia shuddered at the memory of the awful beast encased in ice in the ninth circle, tattered wings and raw, tattooed flesh. The Devil picked up on her reaction and smiled wickedly.

"I must assure you that I do not normally look quite so terrifying; it was a side-effect of the imprisonment: trapping me in my most uncouth and uncomfortable shape. The human shape, I find, is always the best." He fell silent, musing on a personal thought for a while before snapping back into the one-sided conversation. "Where are my manners? I really mustn't go off on tangents like this. Where was I? Ah yes. I knew that my true form would have to return, and so I subsequently knew that I needed an establishment here in the corporeal realm that would… safeguard my interests, shall we say?"

The Devil patted Pike on the shoulder like a good friend.

"I had already built up quite a following, I must say. Devil-worshippers are always such a helpful bunch, so eager to give up their souls in return for eternal power. Such a pity that the poor fellows don't realise what they've given up till it's too late. Once I had recruited a few of these willing folk, I had the basis of the High Council in place.

"And it was such a clever idea, was it not? No-one would ever suspect the most prestigious magical body of having very much ulterior motives, would they? As soon as the ball was rolling, so to speak, I stepped back and let them take the lead, recruiting the best and brightest magicians to their cause, and using my power to ensure their… continued acquiescence."

Amelia looked out over the assembled ranks of JHC magicians, taking in their glazed, blank expressions. They were not true soldiers, nor true witches and wizards. They were merely shells, puppets, controlled by the evil masterminds who had so readily followed the Devil's evil command. They had been brainwashed.

"Of course, sometimes I had to step in and make a few changes to our public policies, after all, the JHC is my personal bodyguard in a manner of speaking. If there was something that might have threatened my sovereignty then it naturally had to be dealt with."

Amelia heard an imperceptible movement behind her and, loathe as she was to turn her attention from the Devil, she glanced behind to see Egbert's face set in a tense mask of pure fury, the knuckles on the hand gripping his staff bone-white. The Devil was talking about the JHC massacre of the Liaison children. If he had been behind the JHC, then he had been behind that bloody episode, and the reasoning was horribly clear.

The Devil had either not seen or chosen to ignore Egbert's reaction, as he turned his attention to Della.

"I am most surprised, my dear, that you didn't think of that one sooner. You have done such a remarkable job of pre-empting my every other move that I thought that someone of your impressive ingenuity would have put two and two together long ago. Especially since the massacre was the reason that your real parents abandoned you."

His voice was beyond gleefully wicked; now he was simply being cold and sadistically cruel. Amelia knew that until she had met Egbert, Della had always felt a slight sense of resentment at being what she termed 'abandoned'. Knowing his and Isabella's reasons had changed her viewpoint and she now shared a good working relationship with her birth father, but Amelia did not know how tender a subject her adoption still was. Amelia could not see Della's reaction, but whatever it was made the Devil laugh heartlessly.

"I know, I know, that was somewhat uncalled for. But still, I must congratulate you my dear; the only Liaison to slip through my fingers; and you came so close to destroying me those years ago. Such a shame that you were unable to. You would have saved your friends so much trouble. And now look at you, completely powerless and fat to boot."

"Della, don't, he'll just know he's provoked…" Amelia heard Mildred begin, but she was cut off by an exclamation of rage from Della and a projectile flew through the window, hitting Pike squarely in the forehead. Peering through her glasses, Amelia saw that it was a folding umbrella from Della's handbag, thrown in her anger.

"Touchy, touchy." The Devil tutted. "You need to work on your aim, my dear."

Pike bent down and picked up the umbrella, rubbing his head.

"Damned pregnant women and their hormones," he grumbled, without a shadow of irony in his voice. The Devil gave a raucous laugh at the statement and took the umbrella, letting it burst into flames between his fingers.

"You know Pike, I believe that 'damned' is the perfect word to use in the situation." He looked up to the window. "Della my dear, throwing things will do nothing except make you seem like a toddler having a temper tantrum, and we don't want that, do we? You know what I am going to do, and you know that there is nothing you can do to stop it, so why waste your energy trying?"

He sounded almost bored but then his demeanour changed on a dime, like he was wont to do.

"Now you have the full story," he said, clapping his hands excitedly, "and I have an unconscious Constance at home. We can't keep a lady waiting now, can we?"

Amelia was so incensed that she didn't trust herself to open her mouth lest she spit furious gibberish in her state of ire. She knew she ought to act in her position as the head of the school, and indeed she wanted to act, but what could she do? When the Devil had said that there was nothing that they could do to halt the inevitable march of their lives towards their terrible fate, he had been correct. They were a tiny force compared to the veritable army of elite, if drone-like magicians that were assembled outside the school, and any attempt at resistance would be futile. It was far better to remain subservient now and in return receive as much time as they could to try and find a solution, although the hope of doing so was slipping through Amelia's fingers like water. So caught up was she in her destructive train of thought that she almost did not notice the Devil begin to speak again.

"Well, I had best be on my way – people to do, things to see and all that. I trust you can hold the fort here Pike?"

He vanished without waiting for an answer, and Amelia knew that the immediate danger was over. She turned away from the window, took a few steps towards the stairs and her office and crumpled, her legs giving out beneath her. Davina rushed to her side, twittering worriedly, and Egbert held out an arm to help her up. Before long the others had gathered around her, asking after her well-being.

"I'm fine," Amelia assured them, lying through her teeth to hide the terrible turmoil that she was feeling inside. "I just… need a moment."

The other women and Algernon nodded, making for the stairs and no doubt the staffroom; Amelia accepted that she was still leaning heavily on Egbert and he could not move with the rest of them. She took a few deep breaths, organising everything in her mind.

To start with, the Devil was coming back. He would be coming back through the portal within the school's dungeons, an act that would be destructive enough in itself, but to add insult to injury, there were at least a hundred witches and wizards assembled outside to open the Void and secure the utter obliteration of the castle and its occupants.

But the most important thing that kept pushing itself to the front of Amelia's mind was that the Devil had Constance, and this time, he had her on his terms. She was petrified for her younger friend, not daring to think of what the consequences might be for her, and she was also petrified for herself. Constance was her most advanced witch; the school's inbuilt defence mechanism. Without her they were nigh-on powerless.

Amelia gave a choked squeak as the selfishness of her thoughts hit her squarely in the chest. How could she be thinking in that way when Constance's life and soul were in peril? How could she?

"Amelia?" asked Egbert gently. "Are you alright?"

"Oh Egbert," she replied, her voice barely audible around the lump in her throat. "What are we going to do?"

Egbert didn't reply, for at that moment a shard of lightning illuminated the rapidly darkening sky. There was a storm approaching outside, but it was nothing compared to the turbulence in Amelia's mind.

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**Note: **Dun dun dun... Next chapter, we find out how Constance is bearing up...


	13. Chapter 13

**Note:** Thank you thank you thank you for all the reviews that I have gathered in my absence, they mean an awful lot! I've been away on my holidays, hence no updates, but I am now back. Unfortunately, I am more than likely to be moving to Germany on the 1st of September and there is an awful lot of stuff to be sorted out before then, so updates may be scatty! I'm going to try my best to keep to the every-two-days schedule I am used to working off. Anyway, enough from me & enjoy the chapter!

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**The Last Stand**

**Chapter Thirteen**

When Constance woke, her mind fuzzy from her enforced sleep, she fast became aware of the pounding pain that was spreading through her skull; from a sharp stab at the point where the back of her head had made contact with the cupboard door to a dull throbbing in her temples. The pain clouded her perception and it hurt to open her eyes… going back to sleep seemed so much more inviting.

But she knew she couldn't. There had been no mistaking the voice that had leered to her as she had gone under, no mistaking the melting shape in her fuzzy vision as her one-time tutor Professor Ravenswing had metamorphosed into another form, another horribly familiar form. She should have known really, she should have remembered. Professor Ravenswing would not have looked exactly the same as she had done twenty-five years ago, if she was even still alive. Constance had been wary since she had received the invitation, but it was only once the woman who she had viewed as a mentor for the few short months of their acquaintance had begun to cast that she had realised that something was terribly wrong.

She wondered where she was, although she had a pretty grim idea as to her location. If the Devil was behind her incapacitation then there was one place that he would have in mind. She forced her eyes open and was confirmed in her suspicion. Deep red walls and ebony woodwork… She was in the Devil's bedroom.

"Hello Constance dear. I'm so glad you're awake."

The honeyed voice came from near her feet, and Constance gingerly moved her aching head to see that she was lying on a familiar red velvet bedspread, Professor Ravenswing perched demurely at the foot, holding a plate of croissants and looking at her with a look of what appeared to be genuine concern. The charade was too much for Constance and she narrowed her eyes, half in malice and half as an attempt to control her slightly swimming vision.

"I know what you are," she said through gritted teeth, although she was horribly aware of how feeble her voice sounded next to its usual power.

"I know," Professor Ravenswing replied with a patronising smile. "You always were very observant Constance, even when you're halfway to oblivion you still manage to notice when things aren't quite right." The glamour fell away, the stout female form shimmering and shifting as it had done in the classroom earlier. The Devil remained seated in the same position; if Constance had been so inclined she might have found his appearance, dressed in Ravenswing's clothing, comical. "It was always worth a try." He looked down at the skirt and blouse and raised an eyebrow. "You do have far better taste than your elders," he added. "These knickers are absolutely ridiculous." He gave a small shiver of revulsion and his ensemble returned to the black suit she was more used to seeing. "Croissant?"

Constance glowered at him before realising that furrowing her brow in such a way only served to cause her further pain.

"You're right," he said. "It's six o'clock in the evening at any rate." He snapped his fingers and the foodstuffs disappeared.

Constance made to sit up; prop herself against the plump, silk-covered pillows in a more vertical position so that she could see her captor better, but she found that her movement was inhibited. The Devil gave a snort of laughter that he quickly turned into a polite cough. Constance looked up to find her hands bound to the bed-frame with blood-red ribbon.

"What have you done?" she hissed, jerking back to face him and ignoring the jolt of pain that shot from her crown down her neck. She drew her knees up instinctively, curling up as much as she could to get as far away from the menace at the end of the bed as possible, and she found that her ankles were tied together as well with the same satin ribbon.

"What do you think I've done?" the Devil said plainly. "I've tied you up." He shook a finger at her and tutted. "You do so make a habit of leaving at inopportune moments, we wouldn't want you to get away again, would we?"

Constance was only half listening to his explanation, for she had just realised what she was wearing. It was not the black ensemble that she had begun the day in. A wave of nausea washed over her as she took in the frothy white and red ensemble that she was clothed in, although she couldn't divine whether this was from her head injury or the thought of the Devil undressing her. He had no doubt been responsible for the change, and knowing his past track record when it came to her body, he would have undoubtedly taken the opportunity to dispense with magic and take a far more hands-on approach to disrobing her. She took a deep breath to try and clear the unpleasant feeling and the Devil looked at her.

"Are you quite alright?" he asked politely, turning his head on one side.

"You knocked me unconscious and tied me up!" hissed Constance, unable to keep the primal growl in her voice down. "What do you think?"

"Ah yes, I suppose." The Devil gave a small laugh at a private joke before returning to a picture of seriousness. He looked at Constance in earnest, and for a brief moment his eyes mirrored those she had seen five years before, at the closing of the Void, a softer, deeper red, unlike the demonic shade that so usually coloured those windows to the soul, or the lack thereof in this entity's case. It made him seem so much more human, and the disarming thought brought a fresh wave of nausea to Constance's stomach, causing her breath to catch in her throat. The Devil's eyes narrowed, and she matched the action, daring him to comment on her vulnerable state. He continued his speech, seeming to ignore her momentary show of discomfort, but she could not be sure if he was truly taken in by her apparent lack of concern for her physical wellbeing, or if he was merely playing along. "There is a reason for this all, of course."

"Of course," snarled Constance, ignoring the throbbing pain in her left temple that was causing her vision to swim in front of her.

"As you know – surely such an accomplished witch as yourself must know – my true form is finally returning to hold the position that I should rightfully retain on the Earth above."

He was speaking as if this was the ultimate realisation of a single long-term goal, as if none of the previous endeavours that he had initiated had been of any importance at all, despite the terrible dangers that the world had faced because of them.

"Now, as you no doubt realise, there is a weak spot beneath your humble establishment where the two worlds – corporeal and metaphysical – collide. Magic is naturally drawn to such a rift, and as such, it is as fitting place as any to use as the entrance point for my physical form. After all, why waste time making a hole when there's one already there?"

Constance did not reply, for she knew the direction that the conversation was taking. She gasped involuntarily, and the Devil picked up on her reaction.

"I'm not altogether convinced that you are as alright as you appear to be," he mused. "Is there anything I can get for you? Aspirin? You did hit your head rather hard."

Constance cursed inwardly; the last thing she needed in her already fuzzy-headed state was to be drugged by the Devil.

"I could fetch a doctor perhaps." The Devil's voice betrayed his amusement at the thought. "I know several excellent physicians, and they would probably not prove quite as difficult to kidnap as yourself."

Constance simply glowered at him, but unwilling as she was to accept his offers of help, her current stance was extremely uncomfortable, and she doubted that her semi-prostrate position was helping with her head or her stomach.

"Could I sit up a little please?" she asked.

"Certainly."

Constance gritted her teeth as the Devil slid unnaturally warm hands under her waist and shifted her up the bed slightly into a sitting position, leaning in to her cleavage far lower than was strictly necessary. He paused before continuing, inviting her to request something else but she steadfastly refused, keeping her lips pressed together in a thin line.

"Where was I?" he began. "Ah yes. My physical body will return to the Earth through the rift beneath Cackle's that already exists. But such a process is a considerably destructive one. The castle and its environs… Well, suffice it to say that they would not be in quite as healthy a shape as they are now once my reappearance has been completed. Lives will be lost, Constance, but I could not allow yours to be lost with them."

"How noble," Constance spat. If the castle that she had thought of as a home for almost twenty years had was to be doomed to oblivion, then she wanted to be there with the women and girls that she thought of as her family, standing alongside them until the end. That was where she belonged. She neither needed nor wanted a salvation from their shared fate.

"I knew you would never come willingly." His voice seemed almost wistful, and he stared into the middle distance. "I always knew that I would have to use magic... The invitation was such a simple idea; there was nothing to prove that it was not a genuine correspondence from the High Council, shrouded in mystery as its bureaucracy is, and why would you have any reason not to trust your old professor?" He sighed. "Of course, I overlooked your uncanny ability to see everything. I honestly did not intend for you to be injured; I merely wanted to incapacitate you so that you would not struggle. You wouldn't see that this is best for you."

"How would you know what's best for me?" snapped Constance, her unbridled rage bubbling up in her throat, her mental anger sparring with her physical weakness for dominance over her mindset.

"Surely it is better to live than to die?" said the Devil softly. "But your sisterhood, and the bonds that keep you so entwined with each other, will never allow you to see that. To you, if your precious coven is doomed then so must you be, you take such grim delight in refusing to acknowledge that your existence is independent of theirs, that you could do anything you wanted…"

Constance did not need to be told this, by the Devil no less. She knew that she was her own person, her own witch, but that did not stop her wanting to be a part of the Academy's fate, whatever that might be pre-destined to be. It was her life to make her own choices with, certainly, and she had chosen to stay with the witches at Cackle's.

"Stay with me," the Devil continued, his voice lowered. "Give yourself to me and you'll have eternal life, eternal youth, powers beyond your wildest imagination." There was something in his eyes, something almost pleading, and Constance finally saw the relevance of her ensemble; the frothy gown was not merely an excuse for the Devil to undress her, it was a wedding dress.

"Never," she spat, pulling against her restraints but the ribbon was tied fast. The jerking movements caused her head to throb afresh, and with the new pain came more nausea, a bubbling wave in the pit of her stomach. She gasped and leant forward as much as her bound position would allow, breathing heavily to try and regulate her churning insides. She felt something warm pass over her wrists and ankles and suddenly she was free again. She crossed her arms over her stomach and closed her eyes, waiting as the feeling passed as quickly as it came. The Devil pressed a hand against her forehead, the heat of his skin doing nothing to aid the prickling pain there. She ducked away from him, trying to stand, but the ache in the back of her head caused the room to spin and she toppled before she had even managed to get off the bed. The Devil caught her before she could smack into the covers face first.

"My dear," he began, the concern in his voice alarmingly genuine. "I really don't think…"

It was then, as she struggled in his inhumanly strong grip, involuntary revulsion at being so close to the beast beating down her discomfort, that Constance saw her chance over his shoulder. The mirror, the entry way to a portal made of ice. A portal whose exit point Constance happened to know the exact location of: hidden in the attics of the castle, under brown paper wrappings, was the ice-glass from Della's cheval mirror that she had escaped through all those years before. All she had to do was get there. All she had to do was get the Devil to leave her alone for a few moments, so that she could make it to the mirror at a pace that would not aggravate her pain. There was only one thing for it.

She let her body go limp, closing her eyes and sagging against his solid form.

"… that's a good idea," the Devil concluded. He sighed heavily. "You're making quite a habit of doing this, aren't you? Why you can't just do as you're told and go along with the plan is beyond me." The annoyance in his voice was just a pretence but Constance made no response, gave no indication of sustained consciousness.

"Constance? Connie?" His tone was sharper now, with a little worry colouring it. He shook her shoulders lightly to wake her, but Constance kept her eyes closed. She felt him gently manoeuvre her into a lying position and tried not to betray her fraud when his hot fingers brushed the side of her face.

"Perhaps the doctor was not quite such an irrational suggestion after all," he murmured. Constance waited in the fraught silence as he considered his options, wishing that she knew what he was thinking, but there was of course no reason for him to share his plans with a woman who was, to all intents and purposes, unconscious. She listened for the slight shimmering sound that heralded a magical disappearance until finally, with a half-serious lament about his plans always being sidetracked at the most inconvenient of times, she heard it, and peering through almost-closed lashes, Constance confirmed that she had the room to herself. She slowly raised herself on her elbows, avoiding any sudden movement as she carefully edged towards the end of the bed and regained her balance, making her way over to the mirror with fluid actions. The last time she had travelled this way, there had been nervousness, a slight reluctance, apprehension at her final destination, but Constance felt none of this now. She continued her journey towards the mirror, and did not pause as she reached the ice, walking straight through it…

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**Note2: **To be continued... The next three chapters were written together and will (hopefully) be posted in (fairly) quick succession.


	14. Chapter 14

**Note:** And here is where the action really picks up! Massive thank yous to everyone who's been catching up with this and reviewing every chapter - it means a lot!

* * *

**The Last Stand**

**Fourteen**

Constance had only travelled by ice-mirror once before, and she liked it no better the second time. It was cold, damp, and one had the terrible feeling of being caged in. As she passed through the first glass, she reached out a hand in front of her to begin the pass through the second, but she felt only a freezing solid surface in front of her. She opened her eyes, having closed them when her face passed through, to find herself staring at her own reflection. The mirror at the other end of the portal was blocking her. She was trapped.

Panicking slightly, Constance put a hand back towards the mirror she had just come through, only to find that one solid as well. It seemed that the ice only worked one-way; once you had decided on making your journey there was to be no changing your mind half-way through.

Constance forced herself to think rationally and not to panic. There had to be a reason why the mirror wasn't working. It was there, in Cackle's, she knew exactly where it was located because she had hidden it there herself. There was no reason for it not to be working – it was not cracked, or… Constance suddenly realised what was wrong. The mirror was still wrapped up in the brown paper in which it had been delivered to the castle. That was what was preventing her from moving through it, but there was nothing that she could do to rectify the situation from her current position. She needed help from the other side, but how was she going to get it?

Constance rested her aching head against the surface of the mirror, trying to think of a way to communicate a message to Amelia, or Mildred, or Maud, or even Davina. Anyone who could come and unwrap the mirror in the attics and help her to escape her glass prison. Her thoughts came back to Mildred, and an idea struck her. As she breathed on the glass, fogging up her reflection, she remembered a conversation that she and Mildred had shared just after the latter's appointment at the school. Mildred had said that she still kept and used the enchanted compact that Constance had given her during the opening of the Void and the calamities that surrounded it all those years ago. If Mildred still had the compact on her, then perhaps there was a chance that she would be able to reach her…

It took a while for her reflection to fade away and be replaced by Mildred's scared face, but once it had done so, Constance breathed a sigh of relief.

"Miss Hardbroom!" the younger woman exclaimed. "Where are you? We need you here, all Hell's broken loose."

Constance spent no time wondering the irony of the phrase.

"Mildred, I'm on my way back, through the mirror, but I'm stuck. I need you to go into the main attic; in one corner there's a package under a white sheet. Take off the sheet and the paper wrappings; it's the mirror I'll come through."

From the way that Mildred's face was bobbing in the frame, she could tell that the other witch was running towards her destination.

"How did you escape?" her junior asked incredulously.

"The same way as last time," said Constance quickly. "But Mildred, what's happening back at the castle?"

"Well, we've got the entire JHC amassed outside as an army ready to strike and get the Devil's true form back through the rift under the school, and Della's just gone into labour."

Constance said nothing, the words turning over and over in her head.

"Ok, I'm here now, I'll see you in a sec."

Mildred's image faded away, and almost instantaneously, the full-sized girl was there in front of her, the attic visible beyond. Mildred held out a hand and Constance reached through the glass to take it, the rest of her body following.

"So what's the plan?" she asked, grimacing as a wave of pain throbbed through her forehead. She cast a spell to summon a pain-relief potion, and downed the small vial in one swallow, praying that the medication would keep her clear-headed enough to face whatever was thrown at her, in the short term at least.

"I haven't got a clue," said Mildred sadly. Before she could elaborate any further, a scream ripped through the building, a scream that Constance recognised as belonging, without a shadow of a doubt, to Della.

XXX

When Della had suddenly let out a stream of loud and violent profanity, the gathered occupants of the entrance hall had all turned in her direction, astounded at some of the things spilling from the usually mild-mannered writer's lips. Enid had seen the problem straight away: Della was leaning on the staircase with one hand over her stomach, her face contorted in pain, and glossy liquid was pooling by her feet.

"Della…" Miss Cackle had begun.

"The baby's coming!" Della had screamed, tears flowing down from beneath her screwed eyelids. "Where's Gareth? Get Gareth!"

"Della, he's in Wales," Egbert had started, but out of the corner of her eye, Enid had seen Algernon touch his friend's arm to cut him off and shimmer away into the ether with a wave of his staff. She'd turned back to Della, alone by the staircase. Everyone was so shocked into stillness, just staring at the poor woman, who was obviously in agony. Enid had confidently stepped forward through the puddle of amniotic fluid, taking Della's shoulders in a friendly, reassuring grip. She'd heard Mildred take off at a run, and cursed her friend's queasiness.

"It's ok," she'd soothed. "Algernon's gone to get Gareth, he'll be here before you know it."

"This isn't right," Della was sobbing. "It's too soon!"

"Sh sh," said Enid calmly. "It'll all be alright. The baby's decided it's like its mother and has an inexplicable attraction to drama. It wants to know what all the fuss is about!"

Through her tears, Della managed a brief smile before grimacing again, and something struck Enid as slightly strange about the situation. Surely first labours were meant to last hours, with women having contractions all day before their water broke? This seemed far too sudden, far too quick. She concentrated on the moment at hand, hearing Miss Bat begin to flap about in her panic.

"What do we do? What do we do?" she fluttered.

"Warm towels and water on a rolling boil?" suggested Amelia.

"I thought that was only for sheep!" exclaimed Maud.

"I thought it was to keep the husbands busy whilst the midwife gets on with the important job," Enid called. "Besides, this is Cackle's. Where do you propose we get _warm_ towels from?" She turned back to Della, knowing that she had to stay calm otherwise the baby would become distressed and that would lead to complications. "Come on Della, just relax. This is perfectly natural; your body knows what it's doing. Just… remember what they told you at ante-natal classes. Remember to breathe."

Della nodded, resting her head against Enid's shoulder. Enid was sure that she should move and get her lying down, but she just as she was about to make the suggestion that they gravitate to a place with more privacy and, most importantly, a bed, Della let out an piercing scream as another violent contraction wracked her body. Enid closed her eyes with an inward groan as she heard Miss Bat heading for the staffroom cupboard; hopefully no-one else would panic as well, it wouldn't help Della to calm down in the slightest.

There was a sudden shimmer, and salvation arrived in the form of Miss Hardbroom.

"Constance!" exclaimed the gathered party, none so emphatically as Della.

"Yes, yes, I'm here," she said, dismissing their concerns and coming over to her distressed friend. Enid saw Mildred come careening down the stairs and reproached herself for her earlier misjudgement; Millie had obviously been helping Miss Hardbroom back from wherever she had been held prisoner. She looked at the potions teacher as Della latched onto her with her free hand, noticing how deathly pale the older witch was looking.

"Now then," she said, briskly but not unkindly. "Let's get you sorted out."

They vanished, leaving Enid alone to breathe a long sigh of relief. She hadn't panicked – she would never openly panic, it went against the whole philosophy of being Enid Nightshade – but she was glad that someone older and more qualified than herself was on hand to take control of the situation. She cast a spell to clear up the mess on the floor and leaned back against the staircase herself, taking in the faces of the people remaining in the entrance hall.

"It'll be alright," she reassured them. "Giving birth's instinctive."

Just then there was a shout from up the stairs, one that had undeniably come from Miss Hardbroom's lips.

"Enid!"

Enid needed no further prompting, taking the steps two at a time and hurtling along the corridors until she found the source of the yell in Miss Hardbroom's bedroom. The eiderdown had been hastily stripped off the bed and Della was lying on the sheeted mattress, her sodden tights and knickers off to one side, her face a grim mask of pain.

"Enid, I called you because you don't panic," said Miss Hardbroom quietly, one hand massaging the back of her head whilst the other was being held in a death grip by Della's white knuckles. "I can't do this alone; I don't want to try transporting her to the hospital as I'm sure that I am concussed and I dread to think of the consequences. I managed to get her up here without incident but that was only a short distance." She sighed and her face spasmed in pain momentarily. "Something's wrong, Enid," she continued, in a low voice so that Della wouldn't hear. "I know nothing of childbirth but I know that something's wrong."

Enid nodded, she'd already divined as much herself. She moved up to the head of the bed and gently stroked Della's damp hair off her forehead.

"Della," she said calmly. "When did the contractions start?"

"About twenty minutes ago… Not due for two and a half weeks… thought it was just Braxton-Hicks…"

'Practice contractions', Enid mouthed to Miss Hardbroom, who had raised an inquisitorial eyebrow at the expression. Aloud she said:

"We need to get you to the hospital; or at least get a medical professional out to you here." She turned to Miss Hardbroom. "Do you think you could get yourself to the hospital to get a midwife?" She felt bad for asking; if she only just managed to get up the stairs then such a long journey would not be easy, and the deputy's condition seemed only to be worsening.

"I'll try." She shimmered away, but her image had barely left the room before she stumbled back, clutching her head. "No…"

Enid wondered for a moment exactly what had happened between her and the Devil before pushing that thought to the back of her mind and focusing completely on the task at hand, namely getting Della to a hospital or getting the hospital to Della.

"Perhaps Egbert could do it," she suggested, before hollering his name so loudly that it resounded through the walls of the school. He arrived on the scene in moments.

"Yes?"

"Can you transport yourself over to the hospital and kidnap us a midwife?" Enid asked plainly.

"Certainly." He gave a concerned glance at his daughter before waving his staff and making to vanish, but nothing happened.

"What's the problem?" Enid asked; this setback not worrying so much as puzzling her.

Miss Hardbroom and the Chief Wizard looked at each other and then at Della, and Enid heard the unmistakeable crackle of raw magic in the air.

"Power and Precedence Theory," they answered together. Enid just looked blank.

"The most powerful magician in any given area, in this case probably the entire castle, has the highest chance of casting a successful spell," Miss Hardbroom explained quickly. "At the moment, the most powerful magician in the room would appear to be Della's baby."

"What?" gasped Della, her eyes shooting open at the words. "That's insane!"

"Not really… You have the blood of two magicians in your veins, which is rare enough as it is. Your little one has you as a mother, providing two lots of magical blood, and Terrence Jones as a grandfather, adding a third. He, or she, is probably the most powerful magician in the country," Egbert added.

"Oh, fantastic," sighed Della, the sarcasm heavy in her voice, but this sharpness didn't last long, the final word fast becoming a whimper of pain.

"I could always fly," suggested Enid.

Miss Hardbroom looked out at the storm.

"You are not flying in this weather," she said pointedly.

"It's an emergency!" Enid snapped. "Besides, you're not my teacher anymore!"

"I'm still enough your senior to be able to tell you that you are not risking your life by flying in a force ten gale and rainstorm!"

"Ladies!" interrupted Egbert. "I have had an idea. Theoretically, if I transport with Della, then her magic, or rather her baby's magic, should not impede mine, but instead aid it, thus increasing the chance of a successful spell."

Enid and Miss Hardbroom nodded, stepping aside a little to allow Egbert through. He placed an arm around Della's shoulders and ascertained that she was as comfortable as could be expected considering her position before waving his staff. Nothing happened, a faint shimmer appearing around his silhouette as he tried to dematerialise.

"P and P?" Miss Hardbroom asked, on seeing his puzzled expression.

"No." Egbert's face changed from perplexed to worried, the colour draining from his cheeks. "Para-Failsafe."

Enid's blood ran cold. Anyone with a basic knowledge of magical first aid, as she had, knew about the Para-Failsafe. It was a natural magical reflex that occasionally prevented transporting someone in a medical emergency.

The reason for the prevention was because the person being transported was in very real danger of death.

There was only one thing for it. Enid rolled up her sleeves.

"Do you trust me?" she asked Della, who nodded quickly. Enid moved back to the foot of the bed and gently moved Della's legs apart to check the progression of the delivery.

"Enid, what…" Miss Hardbroom began, but Enid cut her off.

"I've helped birth three litters of kittens and I've got two younger siblings," she said. "If we can't get Della to a doctor, and we can't get a doctor to Della, then we're going to have to do it ourselves."

* * *

**Note2: **And hopefully, the next couple of chapters will be up asap!


	15. Chapter 15

**The Last Stand**

**Fifteen**

Algernon Rowan-Webb would freely admit that he was not the most unflappable of wizards; indeed he would cheerfully say that it took little more than a loud bang to make him panic. He would also admit, but to himself only, that his sense of direction needed at best improvement and at worst a complete overhaul. Why then, he had decided that it was a good idea for him to go to a city he had never been to and search in a university he had never visited for a man that he had met only twice, he would never be able to tell.

He materialised in the centre of Cardiff, in a back street opposite the cathedral, the only witness being a half-asleep Big Issue seller, and on establishing that he had absolutely no idea where he was in relation to where he needed to be, he proceeded to attempt to navigate his way towards the English department of the university. Finally accepting that he was getting absolutely nowhere fast, he gave in and bought a map at a small newsagent. Thinking of the problems that he had experienced with such cartographical skills in the past, he sensibly asked the woman behind the counter for the quickest way to the university. She showed him the route to the main building, and as he moved away, tucking the map into his pocket for future reference, he sensed her looking at him with interest. It was only then that he realised that a man wearing robes of varying colours of green and carrying a long wooden staff was not the most inconspicuous of figures in the middle of the Welsh capital.

"I'm delivering an urgent message," he said, hoping that this would stop her from asking too many questions. "I need to tell a man his wife's in labour."

"Can't you just phone?" asked the woman behind the counter plainly, obviously not believing a word of his true story. Algernon thought about the option. Wizards, and magicians in general for that matter, were not in the habit of using phones. It was not that they were unable to, it was simply that it was far quicker for them to deliver news in person via self-transportation, or with a spell that could find its intended magical recipient immediately. Of course, he couldn't tell any of this to the woman behind the counter, and to top it all, he had no spare change for the payphone in the corner and didn't know what number to call anyway. Algernon decided to cut his losses and simply left the shop-assistant's questions hanging in the air. He slipped down a side street next to the newsagents and got out the map again, wondering why he had pocketed it in the first place. He pointed to the university building and waved his staff, praying that he would end up in the right place. True, Algernon was not the most adept wizard there had ever-been, and his shape-shifting skills were distinctly sub-par at the best of times, but he was not completely inadequate.

He appeared in the shadows of a large building that advertised itself as 'The University of Cardiff – Main Building', and, satisfied that he was in the right place, he went inside and up to the enquiries desk.

"I need to find Dr Jones," he said to the young receptionist.

"Certainly sir," she replied. "Which Dr Jones do you require?"

"Pardon?"

"Which Dr Jones?" the receptionist reiterated. "There are seven."

"Seven!" exclaimed Algernon.

"May I remind you, sir," said the girl patiently, "that we are in Wales, and Jones is rather a common surname here."

"I need Dr Gareth Jones," said Algernon, wishing his voice had not gone quite so faint.

"Good, that narrows it down to two."

"I need the Dr Gareth Jones who teaches English and whose wife is having a baby as we speak!"

"Ah, _that_ Dr Jones, why didn't you say?" The young receptionist wrote some details down on a card and handed it over the counter. "According to the timetable, he has no classes today but there are ongoing seminars that he's involved in, so he'll probably be in his office, which is there on the card."

"Thank you."

Algernon left the building, his head still reeling and his mind hopelessly aware of how much time was passing. He had never been privy to childbirth before, he had no idea how long such an event took. Would the baby have already been born when he finally managed to track down Gareth and get him back to the Academy?

This time, Algernon didn't bother with the preliminaries, transporting straight into a broom closet in the humanities building where Gareth had his office. He strode purposefully along the corridors in the hope that if he looked like he knew where he was going then no-one would bother him, and if he made himself look important enough then his odd dress sense could be put down to his being a mad professor.

He reached the door of Dr Gareth Jones and was about to knock when a handwritten note on the door caught his eye.

_Gareth Jones has been urgently called to fill in for Harry Griffith at the Shakespearean Staging Conference at Exeter University, and he will be on leave of absence from then for the next three weeks. He can be reached at any time by email; urgent queries should be addressed to Mary Taylor. _

Gareth's office door bore the brunt of Algernon's frustration, but the venting of his rage only served to give him an aching foot where he kicked the hard wood.

"Are you alright there?"

The owner of the adjacent office – the very Mary Taylor to whom urgent queries should be addressed – had poked her head around the door to investigate the noise, and Algernon was forced to think on his feet.

"I'm fine," he said, moving away from the door as fast as his hobbling stance would allow. "Just… a minor setback."

"I've got Gareth's mobile number if it's urgent," Mary said, amused. "Is Della having the baby or something?"

Algernon spent a little while weighing up the pros and cons.

"Yes," he said eventually, "Della is having the baby, and yes, the use of the phone would be extremely useful."

"Come in then."

Algernon stepped inside Mary's tiny office, trying not to disturb any of her piles of books or papers, and she handed him a small scrap of paper, indicating the phone on her desk.

"Dial nine for an outside line," she said, and left him to it, taking a step back. Algernon did as he was instructed, and was just wondering what he could say to Gareth when a tinny voice resounded in his ear.

_The mobile phone you are calling is switched off. Please leave a message or try again later. _

"Argh!" exclaimed Algernon, before realising that he was being recorded. "Gareth, it's Algernon, you know, Egbert's friend; Della's having the baby, and we've got a bit of an emergency on our hands, and oh I don't know what I'm saying…"

The phone beeped, indicating that it had stopped recording his message. He dropped the handset back onto the cradle and closed his eyes. He was going to have to go to Exeter and get Gareth from there.

"You sound…" Mary began, but Algernon was already halfway out of the door.

"Thank you for the phone!" he called. "I've got to go!"

He ran back to the broom closet that he had first appeared in, dematerialising before Mary could follow him and enquire why he had run into a broom closet of all places.

Algernon was no more familiar with Exeter than he was with Cardiff, but he now had a determination to succeed unlike any he'd experienced before. He appeared behind a tree on a large grassy area, and his heart leapt to his mouth in relief when he turned and saw the sign in front of him: _For Shakespearean Staging Conference, follow signs to the Peter Chalk Centre. _

Algernon strode out into the road, accosting the nearest person who looked vaguely like a student who knew their way around the campus, asking him the way to the Peter Chalk Centre. When it turned out to be at the top of the hill that they were standing on and no further, Algernon almost kissed the young man in his gratitude, and took off as fast as his old legs would carry him, throwing himself through the swinging doors and catching his breath in the middle of the foyer.

"Can I help you, sir?" asked a porter, leaning over the reception desk.

"I'm looking for Gareth Jones," Algernon panted. "He's from Cardiff University and he's attending this conference and his wife's giving birth."

"Right…" the porter began, but he was cut off by a voice from the other end of the hallway.

"Algernon?"

Algernon looked up to see Gareth running towards him.

"Algernon, what are you doing here?" he asked, and then his face paled. "It's Dells, isn't it? She's having the baby. I told her not to go; I warned her. Is she alright? Is she at the hospital?"

Algernon merely nodded, too puffed at that moment to elaborate. Gareth guided him over to some high stools in front of a window and they sat down for a minute until Algernon was certain that he had recovered from his bout of excitement.

"I think she's alright," he said, "but I don't know if she's in the hospital yet… I don't think she will be, the weather back there's awful and there's raw magic in the air; and Egbert's the only one who can transport and I don't…" Gareth put a hand up to stop him.

"Just let me tell them that I'm going," he said. "There's a broom cupboard just past the porter's desk; I'll meet you in there." The younger man jogged back down the hall and into a meeting room, and Algernon slipped into the closet whilst the porter wasn't looking. If there was one thing that could be said in Gareth's favour, it was that thanks to his father's influence, magic didn't phase him in the slightest. A couple of minutes later, Gareth squeezed into the cupboard beside him and Algernon placed an arm around his shoulders, waving his staff and watching as the shelves around them blurred away into a momentary greyness as they left and transported hundreds of miles away to the castle. Gareth staggered slightly as they rematerialised in the entrance hall; he was still not used to the suddenness of such transport despite having grown up around it.

It did not take them long to find the room in which Della was giving birth, and the atmosphere therein was best described as a tense silence. Della had been staring into the middle distance, her eyes unseeing and her left hand clawed tightly around Constance's wrist, but her face broke into an expression of joy and she released her limpet hold as soon as Gareth entered her field of perception. He crossed the room within moments and took up Constance's position, stroking her forehead and allowing his fingers to be crushed.

"You're here," said Della, her voice hoarse from screaming and pain. Algernon didn't think he had ever known anyone to sound so happy to see another living soul, despite the fact that the little room was becoming extremely crowded with all its current occupants.

"Of course I'm here," replied Gareth. "I'm here and I'm not going anywhere. You're doing great sweetheart, just hang in there."

Della closed her eyes, seemingly at peace now that Gareth was there by her side. Algernon knew from Terrence that it was often remarked that neither of the two were truly complete without the other, and now he was witnessing this with his own eyes.

"It hurts," Della croaked. "They won't give me an epidural."

"I know," Gareth soothed. "But it will be over soon." He looked down to Enid at the bottom of the bed for assurance, and she nodded her agreement.

"Della," she said calmly, "you need to push on the next contraction."

Della nodded, and it was at this point that Egbert left his position on her other side and came over to Algernon.

"How did you do that?" he hissed.

"Well, it was a struggle at first, have you any idea how many Dr Joneses there are in Cardiff university?"

"Not that!" said Egbert. "How did you just appear in the castle?"

Algernon shrugged, puzzled.

"Just normally. Shouldn't I have?"

"P and P is in effect," Egbert answered. "The baby is, or was at least, the strongest force in the area, none of us could use magic while…" Egbert tailed off and smacked his palm against his forehead. Algernon looked at him with a worried expression.

"Egbert? What's the matter?"

"The P and P isn't in effect all the time! Only when the child is manifesting…" he continued the jargon-filled spiel, and Algernon tried to nod in the right places, not understanding a word of what was being said. "This is the eye of the storm," Egbert said finally, to himself if no-one else, looking over at Della, quiet and peaceful for the time being but obviously suffering from acute exhaustion. "A moment of respite."

"Look," said Enid from her position as make-shift midwife. "Will you two fellas either make yourselves useful or kindly move along; there's too many people in here."

"I'm going for a doctor," said Egbert. "Whilst I can."

Algernon was only too happy to leave the others to get on with it, and he opened the door to let himself out at the same time as Egbert raised his staff. Before either could move, an agonising scream stopped them in their tracks. Della was howling in pain, her head thrown back. Even from the distance and angle that he was standing at, Algernon could see that her eyes were pupilless, a sparkling moonstone blue. With morbidly impeccable timing, a flash of lightning streaked across the malevolent sky outside.

The eye of the storm had passed, and its full fury was about to be unleashed.

* * *

**Note: **Next chapter will be here asap! Chapters fourteen through sixteen were all written in one go and I wanted to post them as close together as possible.

*Witnesses NCD tearing her hair out.*

*Looks sheepish.*


	16. Chapter 16

**The Last Stand**

**Chapter Sixteen**

Della's crying was rending Constance's heart. They had long-since established that this was no ordinary birth, and even if it had been, she didn't know if she would be able to stand hearing her younger friend suffering under such terrible pain. There was no doubt in Constance's mind that the cause of the agony was the magic that was manifesting itself in her baby. Why hadn't she thought of it before? Why hadn't she realised? Of course Della's baby was going to have extraordinary power; when one considered its heritage it was completely unavoidable, but the process of magical manifestation had completely slipped Constance's mind.

Normally, when children with magical capability were born, their magic manifested itself at birth, except in the rare case of a Liaison. The raw magic that was ever-present in the air recognised the unborn child as a magician, and began to channel itself into their body and mind. It was the beginning of this channelling process that induced labour – it was no coincidence, thought Constance, that most of the magical babies that she had known in her lifetime had been born at least a day or so before their due date.

Della's labour was different. The sheer amount of magic that was vying for presence in her child was rushing things, causing everything to happen too quickly as the magic tried to channel into the baby before it was born and became an independent being – the intermittent crackling of raw magic in the air told them as such – and the rushed proceedings were sheer torture on Della's body.

"Push, Della!" encouraged Enid.

"I AM!" Della screeched, tears streaming down her cheeks. Gareth wiped her face with a towel but she continued to weep uncontrollably. Constance made up her mind; much as she was loathe to leave Enid on her own to cope, she simply had to find something to relieve Della's suffering. Not trusting herself to summon a potion with the P and P undoubtedly in effect, she left the room at a run, promising over her shoulder to return as quickly as she could. She careered along the corridor and down the stairs towards the potion lab, almost tripping over the wizards, who had discreetly left the room when the screaming had begun. Once in the lab, amongst the familiarity of the precisely arranged bottles and cabinets, Constance could think clearly again, the jumbled mess of worries and theories sorting themselves into a logical order as she perused her shelves, searching for what she needed. Adding a couple of drops of strengthening solution to her regular pain-relief potion, Constance shook the mixture and waited for the bubbles to disperse, her mind still in the bedroom with Della and Enid. Her once troublesome ex-pupil had shone through in these past few minutes, taking on her role as if she had been born to do it and rising to the occasion with aplomb. Constance had worried about Enid when she received the news that she had been asked to leave her university; such a bright witch needed a future, and it seemed that Enid was simply throwing hers away. Now, however, Constance suspected that she might just have found her calling.

After a few seconds that seemed more like hours, the potion was ready to be transported and Constance hared out of the lab and up the stairs again, back into the room.

"Here," she said breathlessly, only just remembering the persistent pain in the back of her own head. "Not as good as an epidural, but hopefully it will help nonetheless."

Della took the proffered vial in a shaking hand and Gareth helped her to sip it. Her eyes had almost returned to normal at this point, Constance noted, although intermittent flickers of blue would shoot across her pale grey irises without warning. Enid tapped her on the shoulder and gestured away from the bed with a flick of her head.

"I don't like this," she said once they were out of earshot of the couple. "Della's heartbeat is through the roof; I couldn't keep count. No ordinary human being has a pulse that fast. I think the magic is speeding up her heart as well as the labour itself." She shook her head. "I also think this is why the Para-Failsafe kicked in."

Constance tensed on hearing the dreaded words. Para-Failsafe was an effective death sentence in at least half the cases in which it came into effect. It was a coded warning, telling a magician to leave it to the professionals for fear of doing more harm than good. Magic was always thought of in such glowing terms, as a cure-all, a wonderment, but in all honesty, it often reached the stage where only professional medicine could help. The body was not inherently magical in itself, being merely a vessel for the magic channelled into it, and everyone, magical and non-magical alike, was subject to the same physical limitations at one stage or another. Magical intervention on the behalf of someone with no inherent magic of their own, like Della, was twice as risky, as should anything untoward happen, such as the Foster's coming into effect, then the patient had no intrinsic self-defence mechanism in their magic like a witch or wizard had.

"Enid!" Della screamed, and Constance knew from the pleading, desperate tone in her voice that her potion had not worked. She had not expected the P and P Theory to apply to potions as well, but after everything that had happened already in this highly irregular delivery, she was not at all surprised. "Enid, get this baby out of me!"

"It's coming," Enid said, and despite everything, Constance thought that she could detect a hint of excitement in the younger witch's voice. "It's crowning, Della, just a little more, just a couple more pushes and you'll be there! Come on, just a little more, you can do it."

Constance closed her eyes as a final almighty crash thundered through the room, coupled with a final howl from the agonised mother; and then suddenly the magical crackle was gone, instead replaced by the mewling of a newborn babe.

"Do you want me to tell you what it is, or do you want to find out for yourself?" Enid was asking.

"Tell me." Della sounded on the verge of collapse, her voice completely drained of all energy but sounding incredibly happy with it.

"Congratulations, you have a beautiful baby girl."

It was only then that Constance opened her eyes, to see a beaming Enid handing Della a towel wrapped bundle. Della's hands were still shaking as she took her baby from her pseudo-midwife, but Constance was sure that she had never seen her young friend smile as widely as she did just then.

"Hello baby," she said softly, her voice on the verge of leaving her completely. "Hello there. It's nice to meet you at last, pumpkin."

Enid came over to Constance once more, looking exhilarated.

"I did it," she said. "I just delivered a human baby. In the middle of a magic maelstrom, no less." She paused. "Do you think that the P and P will still be in effect now?" she asked. "I was just thinking, it would make cleaning up and cutting the cord easier; I honestly have no idea what I'm doing with that."

Constance cast a couple of sparks to check the magic, and when they flew off her fingertips successfully she nodded to Enid, who had cleaned the blood and fluid soaked sheets in a matter of seconds before moving on to the baby itself. By the time Constance had picked up the discarded blankets and brought them over to cover mother and baby with, Enid had the cord clamped and cut and was dealing with the afterbirth. She took everything in her stride with complete amiability, and once more Constance was confirmed in her suspicion that Enid had happened across something that she knew she could do with her life. She covered Della's bare legs with a blanket and Gareth helped drape another across her shoulders, allowing Constance her first proper view of the couple's daughter.

"Does she have a name yet?" she asked.

"We had an agreement…" Della broke off, her face contorted with pain once more as she carefully moved one hand from beneath her baby, Gareth seamlessly taking its place, and pressed her fingertips into her chest, above her heart. Constance risked a glance at Enid, whose happy demeanour faded. "If he was a boy, I'd name him, and if she was a girl, Gareth would name her."

"Dells…" Gareth began to protest.

"No no." A spectre of Della's cheeky expression from times past flickered over her face before her brow furrowed against her discomfort once more. "I'm sticking to it."

"Ok then…" Gareth raised an eyebrow at her. "In that case, you already know that I would choose Carys. But you need to pick a middle name."

Della nodded.

"Carys Enid," she whispered. Constance looked up at the baby's namesake to find her blushing bright scarlet. She opened her mouth to say thank you, but before she could vocalise the thought, Della's breath caught in her throat, and she rubbed her chest again. Fear tainted the back of Constance's tongue as she reached for Della's wrist, trying to make herself sound calm and assured as she explained to the new mother that she was just checking her pulse… It was dropping by the second, from the almost-buzzing that Enid had described to a slow, barely detectable pace.

"It's not good news, is it doc?" Della managed a dry laugh, but there was no power behind her voice now. Gareth looked up, and Constance felt a wave of guilt at the fear in his eyes. "Constance," Della continued, "could you get Davina in please? I have a feeling that sooner might be better than later." She looked up at her husband, shellshocked into muteness. "It'll be alright, Gareth," she whispered. "I promise."

Constance couldn't move. Her feet were rooted to the spot, and she heard Enid leave the room behind her in search of the elderly witch. She wanted to say something but words failed her as she gave Della her wrist back, watching the mother switch effortlessly between crooning to her child and comforting her husband.

Della, the sweet young woman that Constance had met six years previously and formed an unassailable bond with, was dying in front of her. The strain of the frightening, intense, painful birth had been too much for her heart, and now it was giving up the ghost.

She heard the door open and Davina flew in.

"Della!" she fluttered, coming over to the bed to peer at the new arrival. "How are you? We've been so worried about you, is everything alright? Is this the little one? Of course it is, what am I saying? What's her name?"

"Slow down, slow down," rasped Della. "This is indeed our little Carys Enid, and everything is alright, Davina, there's no need to worry."

"Della…" Gareth's voice was shaking as much as his wife's, and Constance could see the tears welling in his eyes. "Dells, everything is not 'alright'."

"Pumpkin is safe and well and here with us now," said Della. "That's all that matters. Everything takes its course, my love. Everything will be alright now. Sometimes, you've got to accept that… life happens."

Davina caught on to the meaning of the words and her hands flew to her mouth.

"Oh Della," she breathed. "Surely not?"

Della nodded.

"I think I knew from the beginning," she said. "But enough of this. Constance, Davina…" She paused, taking as deep a breath as she could manage. "I'd be honoured… if you'd be godmothers."

"Of course," squeaked Davina. "I'd be honoured to take the job."

Constance nodded, unable to speak. Della smiled and caught Gareth's hand with her free one.

"Everything… will be… fine," she breathed. "I love you." She looked down into the face of her child. "I love you… too… Pumpkin…"

Della closed her eyes, and no-one dared to move. It took few moments before Enid made her way over to the bed and gently took her pulse, and it was in that second that footsteps heralded the arrival of Mildred, Amelia and Egbert.

"I'm sorry," said Enid, taking the baby from Della's unresisting arms. "She's gone."

The all-encompassing silence weighed heavy on the room, broken only by Gareth's quiet distress. Constance couldn't bear it any longer. The turbulent emotions, coupled with the pain and nausea she was already feeling…

"Please excuse me," she whispered, and shimmered away. She arrived in the courtyard a split second later, bending double and vomiting violently. She cast a spell to clean up the mess and sat back on the cold, wet flagstones, wiping her streaming eyes on the back of her hand. It was so unfair. Della had been a prisoner of her circumstances for all her waking life, and when she finally had the chance to make a new start, to turn over a new chapter and forget the magical world once more, that life was cruelly snatched away from her by virtue of the same heritage that had brought her into the world in the first place.

"Why?" Constance screamed, looking up at the dark sky. "Why couldn't you just leave her alone for once?"

The sky did not appear to answer, but after a split-second had passed, Constance received a response. The area above the castle began to glow, a pure, brilliant white light descending over the towers and parapets. Whatever traumas they had faced that afternoon, there were more to come.

* * *

**Note: ***Kimmeth hands Kleenex to her reviewers and hopes that they will still review in spite of her traumatising them with graphic descriptions of childbirth if nothing else.*


	17. Chapter 17

**Note:** As usual, thank you to my lovely reviewers! You guys make my day. Here we are, and the intrigue is continuing...

* * *

**The Last Stand**

**Seventeen**

Amelia couldn't speak, and she did not know what she would say had the power of verbal reasoning not failed her so dramatically. As she stood in the doorway to Constance's room, stock still, she could not find words that would adequately describe the turbulent emotions that were flying around the enclosed space. The most obvious was indeed sorrow: Della, the bright young woman who had come into their lives so unexpectedly, had left her own existence just as abruptly and unfairly. At the same time, no-one could deny the presence of the new-born babe in Enid's arms, silent as she was. It was almost as if the infant knew that this was a sobering time and kept quiet accordingly.

The terrible thing was, Amelia _knew_. She had known that this was the inevitable outcome of Della's pregnancy, but it had taken her until this late stage to realise that she had known. For five years, the memories had lain dormant in her subconscious, not raising their heads except in the occasional misremembered dream, but now they were here in the open, as clear as the day on which she had received them. When she had been floating in a state of semi-consciousness, suffering under a malady at the hands of the Devil, Amelia had dreamed of terrible things. None of the split-second, flashed images and sounds had come to pass, until now. She had heard a woman screaming in pain, a man crying, a baby grizzling, and in the past few moments, she had just experienced the most terrible sense of déjà vu. It was enough to make Amelia's head spin and her breath catch in her throat.

Suddenly the room felt extremely crowded and uncomfortable. Even with Constance's sudden and not entirely unreasonable departure, there were still too many bodies in the room for Amelia to think clearly, each one of them in a different state of distress. Next to her, Egbert had gone a sickly shade of grey, his already pale complexion even further drained as he struggled to take in the idea that he had now lost all of his closest loved ones. Davina and Mildred were shell-shocked into stillness, both seeming to be in the same state as Amelia found herself in. Enid's face was pained, her mind obviously torn between the sadness she felt at Della's passing and the lingering exhilaration and adrenaline that she had felt upon delivering a new life into the world. But it was Gareth's sorrow that finally caused Amelia to admit defeat and leave the room. She could not bear to be in the presence of such grief any longer; it was emanating from the man in waves, so strong that it was almost a physical force rolling through the air. Amelia murmured her apologies, meaningless as they were – sorry could not bring her back – and turned, leaving the room and closing the door behind her. She walked a few steps down the corridor and leant heavily on the wall, trying to make some sense of the incoherent thoughts that were flying through her head.

In the first instance, she was a headmistress with a duty first and foremost to her pupils. Della's screams of agony had further disturbed the girls, who were already in a state of terrible fear from the threats of the JHC who were still amassed outside and the rumblings from the basement that were now more than evident. They would need her leadership, guidance and comfort before long, and she had to remain strong for them, no matter how much she wanted to give in to her private grief. The time for mourning could come later. Amelia shook her head at how harsh the words sounded, wishing that she could prevent the passage of time for a while to allow her to break down in the way she wanted to until she was composed and in a better mental state to lead the school in its time of need. Yet another worrying thought was pressing through the jumble of emotions that were clouding both her vision with tears and her judgement with confusion. Pike had said that a mass exodus from the castle could result in upsetting the delicate balance of the rift beneath the Academy. What would the raw magic that had been crackling so violently throughout the past few minutes have done?

A loud shimmering sound seemed to answer her question. It was a lower, more metallic sound than that which generally accompanied the magical transportation that her deputy and the wizards used. There was something sinister about it, and Amelia's heart leapt to her mouth. Was this it? Was this the end for all of them? She had to shield her eyes as a bright flash of brilliant white light shot through the windows near her, the shimmer becoming increasingly louder. Giving up the mental battle for a logical course of action, Amelia began to hare down the stairs towards the dungeons and what she was sure was the source of the latest developments, and it took her few moments to realise that the noise was not coming from below her, but from the room that she had just left.

"Amelia!"

She turned upon hearing the cry and saw Davina pattering down the corridor after her.

"Davina, what's happening?"

"I don't know, but something's coming! Come on!"

Davina began to pull the headmistress back towards Constance's room, her eyes wide with fear. Amelia hung back as much as she could but the small witch was strong for her age when she wanted to be. She was loathe to re-enter the room and step back into the cauldron of warring emotions, but she was going to have no choice. Had she not already told herself that her duty was to her pupils? If her latest negotiation on their behalf had to take place in this particular room then so be it. Amelia steeled herself, not sure what she should be expecting, and followed Davina into the room. Inside, the white light was brighter than ever, seeming to be seeping in through the glass, almost as if the rays were made of a material with a mind of its own. Here, instead of light, the white appeared to be more like ink, curling in tendrils like ink dispersing in water. Amelia had only seen such a phenomenon in one other set of circumstances before, and the thought caused a chill to ripple through her bones. Inky smoke was the forewarning for an appearance of the Devil. But this was different – normally the Devil was heralded by black tendrils, in-keeping with his reputation and sadistic personality. This was white, the purest, brightest white that Amelia had ever seen. It was truly unlike anything that she had ever witnessed before, but the diabolic connections still made her uneasy as the tendrils began to come together into a more human shape.

Finally, the manifestation was complete, and Amelia found herself face to face with a woman in a white dress. An image from the same dream that had foretold Della's passing came back to her.

"The woman in white…" she breathed.

Amelia took a good look at the woman, now that the whiteness was no longer so blinding. She was very pale, her skin so pearly that it was almost translucent, and her eyes were a very light blue, so light that it was almost impossible to tell that she had irises at all, that the white cornea did not simply culminate in the small black pupil. The eyes unnerved her, despite the disarming smile on her frosted pink lips. The only thing that was not unnaturally pale was her hair, which was at the other end of the scale: a jet black that served only to wash out her complexion even further.

Amelia opened her mouth but words failed her. It was Gareth who spoke first, his simple, choked sentence summing up the myriad thoughts that were confusing her fraught mind.

"Who the hell are you?"

The woman did not reply. She had no need to, for Enid had answered in her stead.

"She's the Angel," Enid said breathlessly. "The spirit of the Angel. She vanquished the Devil's true form to the ninth circle and her corporeal form was sacrificed, but her spirit lived on."

"Enid? How…" Mildred began.

"I was reading it earlier." Enid brushed the question aside easily, returning to her description. She took a few steps forward and addressed the Angel directly. "You've returned to vanquish the Devil for a second time," she said. "Della said she thought you should. Well, you're too late for her, but you can still save the rest of us."

Amelia could pick up on the bitterness in the younger woman's voice. So too, it seemed, could the Angel.

"I am truly sorry for your loss," she said, her silky voice gliding through the room. Far from being soothing, Amelia found it unnerving; too much like the Devil's way of speaking for her liking. She liked to think that she was normally astute enough to gauge the sincerity of words, but this time her ability was failing her.

"What you have said is all correct," the Angel continued, "apart from one thing. Yes, I am here to finish the work that I began infinite millennia ago. I imprisoned the Devil, but it appears that the first time, my magic was not strong enough. This time, however, I know that I shall not fail.

"I have tried many times before to emulate my adversary and return to corporeal realm in a manifestation like the one you see before you, but the fact that my true form had been destroyed did not allow me to remain in such a form for an extended period of time. Unlike the Devil, I need a host in which to channel my spirit. For years I have searched for my True Host, someone of my original bloodline within whom I can wield the ultimate power, and now I have found her."

A second chill ran through Amelia's bones. She turned back, following the Angel's gaze over her shoulder, but she already knew instinctively who the mysterious Host was. There was only one person in the room who had not been there before, and she was nestled in Enid's arms, only a few minutes old.

"Carys!" Enid exclaimed. "You've got to be joking!"

"There is no joke," said the Angel calmly. "Legend has always foretold that someone of my bloodline must die in order for my True Host to come into being. This has finally occurred."

Finally occurred. Could there be two words more unfeeling, more callous in the circumstances? Amelia's unease gave way to anger. All of the people in the room had been affected by Della's death. They had lost a friend, a daughter, a wife, a mother. Did the Angel not care about their feelings? Did she feel no compassion for the dead? Did she not see the grief that was visible in the room? Amelia felt her fingers curl into fists, although how she expected to physically harm the calm, sickeningly exquisite woman in front of her was a different matter entirely. Still fuming, still unable to speak or even think coherently, all she could do was move out of the way as the Angel came forward, allowing her to pass and move over to Enid and Carys. Instinctively, Enid held the baby closer against her chest, but she was already backed up against the wall with no chance of escape.

"You can't!" she exclaimed. "She's just a baby! She's less than an hour old!"

"She can still help the greater good," the Angel said, looking down at the infant. "She would be remembered forever, having aided the noblest of causes."

She went to touch Carys's face but she was shocked back by a growl from the other side of the bed.

"Get away from my daughter."

Amelia had not paid particular attention to Gareth during the Angel's manifestation and her following speech, but now she could not help but notice his presence. She had always known that Gareth was very tall, almost head and shoulders above petite Della, but now his frame seemed to fill the room as he stood and walked around the bed, coming between Enid and the Angel. The fury in his face was unfathomable.

"You will not take my daughter," he said. "You have already taken her mother from me. I will not lose both my girls in one day."

The words hit home and Amelia gasped. It was the manifestation of Carys's magic that had caused Della's death, but it was this that the Angel had been waiting for in order to return. Had she not required such a sacrifice, perhaps Della might have stood more of a chance of survival. The rest of Gareth's speech then hit, and Amelia realised what terrible purpose the Angel's True Host was to serve.

"It is such a small sacrifice," the Angel said, her tone so horribly light. "One life to save thousands."

"You're insane," growled Gareth.

"Wait!" exclaimed Enid, her voice panicked. There could be no doubt that she was trying to defuse the volatile situation for fear of any harm coming to her tiny charge. "Carys is the True Host and would give you the most time, but anybody can host your spirit, right?"

"Anyone of my bloodline, yes," replied the Angel. "You are correct, however, in saying that it is within her that I have the longest time at my disposal."

"But you don't need a long time!" Enid continued, the pitch and tempo of her voice rising higher and higher. "If you're simply going to sacrifice the body like you did the first time round," here she ignored Gareth's pained exclamation and pressed on, "then it's not time you need, it's power! Carys is immensely powerful, but she can't control it. She'd be useless to you!"

"So who, young witch?" asked the Angel, her ethereal tones falling and her voice becoming hard. "Who else has such power and control?"

"I do."

Amelia whirled round as a shape shimmered into being in the corner of the room. Her pale face streaked with tears, Constance stepped out of the shadows of the door.

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**Note2: **To be continued...


	18. Chapter 18

**The Last Stand**

**Eighteen**

Miss Hardbroom held her head high as she addressed the Angel. There was no hint of a tremor in her voice, nothing to betray the emotions that were obvious in her face. Her words were clear and calm, accepting of the situation and horribly in earnest. Despite the many years that had passed, Mildred still could not fathom how long Miss Hardbroom could remain concealed in any place that she had appeared in. Had the deputy-head heard the rest of the conversation? Did she understand just what she was undertaking in hosting the Angel's spirit?

"I have the power and control you require," she continued. "Take me instead."

The three simple words said it all, and Mildred felt her heart somersault in her mouth. She knew. She was offering herself as a sacrifice, putting her own wellbeing behind that of everyone else in the room, the castle, the world even. She had done it before, and she had no qualms about doing it again.

"I appreciate your noble offer my dear," said the Angel. "But my host must be one of my bloodline and I do not believe that you and Carys are related."

"Not through blood, no," Miss Hardbroom admitted. Mildred thought she could detect the smallest hint of a satisfied smile ghost across the Angel's face. "But we are related through magic."

The Angel's expression was perturbed.

"How so?"

"A few years ago, I entered into a magical connection with Della." Miss Hardbroom nodded unconsciously towards the bed where Della lay, unmoving. "This terminated as soon as her magic was spent, but the bond is irreversible. In the eyes of the law, such a connection is as binding as blood. This relationship has been strengthened by Della formally naming me as Carys's godmother."

The Angel scowled. She had obviously not been expecting such an occurrence to interfere with her well-laid plans, plans that she had been putting into place since almost the dawn of time. The black expression lasted only a split-second however, as her simpering smile returned. Mildred felt her brows knitting together in anger. Was the Angel, the embodiment of all that was good and pure in the world, seeking to sow the seeds of fear and disorder within their ranks? How could they be sure that this was not another one of the Devil's tricks? He already knew that Miss Hardbroom would do anything for the school, and he could easily reason that her protective nature would extend to her goddaughter. Whose wouldn't? But… There was something that Mildred couldn't quite put her finger on, something that, however much she might despise the entity that was so eager to waste innocent lives in the pursuit of her quest, made her inherently trust the Angel for what she was, just as the Devil's form always inspired a sense of fear and unease. Mildred suppressed a howl of frustration. This was a situation the likes of which she had never encountered before in her short life, and she had no idea how she should handle it. She could not stop Miss Hardbroom from doing what she was doing, but at the same time, every nerve in her body was screaming at her to stop the madness, to wake up from the nightmare. If only she could.

"You do realise of course," the Angel began, addressing Miss Hardbroom, "what you will be undertaking if you act as a host for my spirit."

The older witch nodded grimly.

"I understand perfectly."

"You would be willing to make such a sacrifice to defeat the Devil? For the greater good?"

"Of course."

"Constance!" Miss Cackle's voice sounded pained. The headmistress had come so close to losing her dependable deputy on so many occasions during their past discourse with the metaphysical realm, and now it seemed that the time had come when the loss could not be avoided, no matter how hard they tried.

"Would you rather sacrifice an innocent child?" asked Miss Hardbroom calmly.

"No, of course not! I am loathe to sacrifice an innocent woman as well. There must be another way," she implored the Angel. The divine being paid her little heed.

"There is no other way to fully vanquish the Devil," she said shortly, before turning back to Miss Hardbroom. "When you undertake the task, you will need to go to the Devil. Through your sacrifice, my spirit will be channelled and I will be able to bind the demon to the depths of the ninth circle forever more."

Mildred's left hand clenched involuntarily. How could this woman speak so coolly of death and sacrifice in the presence of so many mourners? She caught Enid's eye, and her old friend must have read her expression well. She slipped round the room, taking advantage of Miss Hardbroom's silence to whisper to her friend.

"Not every demon is all bad. Nor every angel all good."

She sounded as if she was quoting, and although Mildred couldn't tell what the foreboding verse was from, it summed up their situation perfectly.

"Do we have an agreement?" asked the Angel levelly.

"Of course." There was a pause. "Please allow me a moment." Miss Hardbroom nodded to Miss Cackle and the two senior witches began to speak in muted tones.

Beside Mildred, Enid gave a small snort.

"What's the betting she'll want a drop of blood to seal the pact?" she muttered to her friend. "These blurred lines between good and evil are giving me a headache." In her arms, Carys gave a soft cry, and Enid's attention was diverted back to her tiny charge.

"It's alright little one," she soothed. "Everything will be alright."

Mildred wished that her voice had been a touch more confident as she spoke to the infant, rocking her gently. She risked a quick glance back at the centre of the room, where Miss Cackle and Miss Hardbroom were still talking. Finally the headmistress enveloped her deputy in a voluminous hug, an action that Mildred was sure that Miss Hardbroom would never have allowed had the circumstances been anything other than the dire ones that they now faced. The two witches parted and Miss Cackle returned to stand beside Mildred and Enid, burying her face in a handkerchief.

"It's time," said the Angel simply. She held out her hand, and for a moment Mildred thought that Enid's prediction of requiring a blood sacrifice was about to come true. After a split-second's hesitation Miss Hardbroom reciprocated the action. The Angel's fingers seemed to glow as she took the witch's hand, and then they disappeared, melting into Miss Hardbroom's palm, the spirit melding to the mortal woman. Mildred couldn't bear to watch, the beginning of the process whereby the stoic deputy-head, who had seemed such a permanent fixture at the school, would leave it forever. As she turned away, there was a blinding flash of light, not unlike the brilliant whiteness that had heralded the Angel's arrival. It dispersed as quickly as it had come, and Mildred risked a glance back at the centre of the room. She did not know what she had been expecting to see, but she was surprised when she saw Miss Hardbroom still standing there, looking at her fingers with an expression that was slightly puzzled and fearful in equal measure.

"Constance?" Miss Cackle ventured. "Are you… are you alright? Is that you?"

"It's me." Miss Hardbroom's voice was shaking. "Yes, it's still me. I can feel her though, in my head." She shivered, and Mildred found herself doing the same. The idea of two mentalities jostling for dominance within the same body seemed alien and dangerous to her, and she bit her lip to prevent her from saying anything.

Miss Hardbroom glanced out of the window, looking no doubt at the army amassed outside, ready to tear the castle apart at a moment's notice. There was no other hope. She was to be their only salvation.

"No time like the present," she murmured under her breath, and folding her arms over her chest, she vanished.

"Constance!" Amelia exclaimed, shocked at the suddenness of the departure.

"I'll be back, Amelia," came the deputy's disembodied voice, and Mildred knew from the determination in her voice that she meant it. "I simply need to make an arrangement."

With the disappearance of both Miss Hardbroom and the Angel, Mildred became horribly aware of the aura of death that hung heavy in the room, Della's body still lying peacefully on the bed, as if in slumber. She had to get out, running for the door with a choked apology, Miss Cackle and Miss Bat hot on her heels. She heard the shimmer of Egbert dematerialising as well, leaving Enid alone with Carys and Gareth. Her friend did not seem fazed, nodding to Mildred to leave. The three witches made their way along the corridor, no-one speaking. They were unconsciously heading towards the windows from which they had first learned of their terrible fate, and they sped up on hearing Miss Hardbroom's voice ringing out clearly.

"I wish an audience with the Devil."

Mildred rushed to the window and looked out, seeing the potions-mistress standing alone before the lines of the assembled Council. She seemed so awfully alone out there, one woman taking on the might of forces unbound by mere magic. Presently, Pike broke rank and came out to speak to her, the dread symbols on his staff glinting in the silver moonlight. The storm had since passed, but the wind continued to blow violently, whipping the deputy's hair into a maelstrom around her head. Mildred could not see her face, but there was definitely something of the ethereal about her appearance now, the gauzy white dress fluttering on the eddies as if it had a mind of its own. Mildred had not paid much attention to the older witch's attire when she had first miraculously reappeared in her compact and subsequently in the castle, she had been too busy being relieved to see her alive and well. Now, however, there was time to study it more closely. If Mildred didn't know better, she would say that it was a bridal frock. Only the Devil… She wondered at the exact nature of the relationship that the two shared, but she knew that she was destined never to know. She strained to hear what Pike was saying as he waved his staff in sweeping motions through the air, but she guessed that he was summoning the Devil in one guise or another. She was soon proved correct.

"Constance." The voice came before its owner, an inky streak of smoke melding into the shape of the Devil as his speech continued. "Well, this is a turn-up for the books. Imagine you coming to see me of your own accord, having run away all these many times before."

He looked up at the castle, his brilliant red eyes boring straight into Mildred's.

"Have you come to your senses at last? Decided that it is time to leave this pathetic group of crones and choose an altogether higher path?"

Mildred's fingers tightened around the window-frame, but she could not allow herself to react. She did not want to provoke an already flammable situation.

"Yes," said Miss Hardbroom simply. "I have."

Mildred noticed that she did not look him in the eye as she said it. Her head was bowed, meek, the picture of a person who could fight fate no longer.

"May I ask the reason for this sudden change of heart?" the Devil continued. "After all, you did seem in such a hurry to leave me earlier. I even kidnapped you a doctor. He was very nice, you would have liked him, although his hands were irrationally cold." He turned his head on one side. "Well?"

"One life has been lost today already," said Miss Hardbroom, and Mildred could not deny that her voice was quavering. "I see no point in delaying the inevitable any further. After all, you said yourself that it is better to live than to die."

"I did indeed." He extended a hand towards her. "In that case my dear, there is no time to lose."

"Constance, no…" Miss Cackle's voice in Mildred's ear was barely more than a breath, but it carried with it a tone of heart-rending pain.

"No. Not yet. Let me say my goodbyes first."

The Devil sighed and looked up at the witches gathered in the window.

"Of course," he drawled. "Your sisterhood. How could I forget?"

"I will return," Miss Hardbroom said, steadily. "You have my word." She held out her right hand, and the scar that she had received five years previously seemed to sparkle in the eerie light. The Devil smiled evilly and traced his fingertips over it, causing the line to burn red. Mildred flinched.

"Oh, I know that my dear. I know that."

Miss Hardbroom vanished, and with the disappearance, Mildred's heart leapt. Perhaps there was a plan, some kind of backup. Maybe this was what the headmistress and her deputy had consulted on back in the room, before the strange transformation had taken place. As soon as Miss Hardbroom had materialised back in the castle with them and Miss Bat had thrown her arms around her colleague, Mildred knew that this was not to be the case. She really had returned to say her goodbyes, and then she was going to leave them forever. No turning back. No get out clauses.

Mildred barely paid attention to the words that were being exchanged, to the fond goodbyes that were being said. She stood, rooted to the spot at the window, her eyes unseeing as people moved around in front of her field of vision. She could not take it in and she was sure that she did not want to. To lose two such important people within such a short space of time, it was unthinkable. The sacrifices that had to be made to defeat the Devil, it was terrible. Even in his vanquishing, the Demon still held some form of control over the corporeal realm.

She heard the shimmer of a magical disappearance, and the sound seemed to bring her to her senses. She jerked forwards and caught herself before she could fall. She knew were Miss Hardbroom had gone and hared forwards, up the steps that led towards the attics, hoping that she was not too late. She had no idea what she would say if she arrived in time, nor why she was running so frantically when she knew that fate could not be changed. It was primal instinct forcing her to do it, and Mildred was in no state to argue with herself. She came to a stop in the dingy loft space, seeing Miss Hardbroom standing in front of the mirror, ready to go through.

"Don't do it," Mildred said. The words came out as a harsh whisper; she could barely give them voice around the lump that was sticking in her throat. She felt as small and vulnerable as a first-year once more. "Please don't do it."

"This is the only way." The older witch paused. "I have to go," she said simply. "Goodbye Mildred. Good luck."

She disappeared into the mirror, with only a fleeting glance over her shoulder, almost as if she was afraid that Mildred would try to pull her back from her fate at the last moment. Mildred knew that however much she would have liked to, she would not have been able to. Her feet were rooted to the spot. This was it; this was the end. The end of their terror at the hands of the Devil. The end of five long years of suffering the constant undercurrent of worry as they wondered what he was planning in his diabolic lair. The end of the uncertainty. And the end of Constance Hardbroom.

Mildred felt her legs give way beneath her and she sank onto the attic floor, her vision clouding over with tears. With impeccable timing, Carys began to cry on the floor below.

* * *

**Note: **There is still plenty more story to come...


	19. Chapter 19

**Note: **This is the first time I have written an entire chapter from the Devil's point of view. It was... interesting to get into his head, but hopefully it will prove enlightening as well, showing his side of the events.

* * *

**The Last Stand**

**Nineteen**

The Devil was waiting. This was not unusual for him. A singular advantage of the eternal existence was that it taught one how to wait. How long had he waited for the culmination of this plan, a plan that had first been put into motion so many centuries ago? Oh yes, the Devil had been waiting for this moment, the moment when his true physical form could finally return to the realm in which it was supposed to reign supreme, rather than the realm in which it was accursedly trapped, for longer than any witch or wizard's living memory. Waiting was second nature to him, but this was the first time that he had felt any sense of impatience, or indeed apprehension, whilst waiting.

He was waiting for Constance. This was something that he had done many times in the past without the feelings of unease that he was currently experiencing, but therein lay a singular disadvantage of his immortality. The Devil could not forget. He could not forget that the last time that Constance willingly came to him, she had planned to kill him and make her escape from his clutches. It might have been five years ago, but he could remember every moment as clearly as if it had happened just seconds ago. It was the unconscious signs that he could recollect the most vividly – the guilty hike in Constance's breathing when she realised that she had been caught, for example, or the way that her eyes had darted around the room to search out her escape route, an escape route that she had rediscovered only a few short hours before.

The Devil felt anger bubble up inside the pit of his stomach. Whilst he could not deny the large part of him that was pleased at Constance's final decision, no matter the circumstances in which it was made, he could also not ignore the larger part of him that felt a deep-seated suspicion at her sudden change of heart. When he had taken her against her will, this woman had deliberately tricked him into allowing her to escape from him, and yet she was now making the decision to return of her own free will. Something was missing from the equation. There was something she had not told him, something that she did not want him to surmise. Naturally, this had caused the Devil some misgivings considering the past history of their reunions. At the same time, he could not decline her offer; he could not turn down the last chance that he would have to own this woman, body and soul, for the rest of his immortality. All he had to do was to make sure that she did not escape from him again, and for this end, the Devil had an idea.

He stared into the mirror; if he concentrated hard enough then he fancied that he could see the shapes on the other side moving through the ice, but he could never be certain that this was a true vision or a figment of his imagination. He would see Constance emerging soon enough, and then he would put his plan into effect. Rather than try to prevent her leaving by stealth or physical means, he would simply remove the means by which she could escape. The mirror was the only way in or out of this realm that the magicians could use. Eliminate the mirror, and he would eliminate the link to the corporeal world.

A sudden thought struck him; would Constance even come at all? What if her unexpected surrender had simply been a ruse to buy the Academy more time, to forestall his ultimate return and to find a way around the seemingly unavoidable situation that the witches within the castle had found themselves in? His momentary fear left him as fleetingly as it had arrived, and with a thin smile he remembered the way that he had traced the pale scar on the palm of Constance's right hand; a reminder of the pact that she had made all those years ago in return from Amelia's health. No-one truly understood the nature of the pacts that one could make with the Devil, only he himself truly knew what he would get in return for his services. Whilst Constance's pact had been a simple one, fulfilled and nullified when she had returned the following night under her own will, she did not know this. Her actions had shown that she was evidently still working on the impression that he held some sort of sway over her in that respect, and as such, she would definitely come through the mirror to him. Besides, despite the various betrayals that they had encountered over the years, Constance had never gone back on her word in such an overt manner. Such blatancy was out of touch with her altogether sharper mind.

The surface of the mirror began to mist over slightly, the sign that someone was coming through it, and after a few seconds, the matt silver formed into a shape instantly recognisable as Constance's silhouette. The Devil smiled wickedly and raised a hand, almost as if in greeting, holding it out as if to help her through the ice. As her fingertips began to push through the surface however, his closed his fingers into a fist, and the ice split, lines appearing in the shimmering surface from the centre point, each with a sickening crack. He heard Constance scream from within it, and finally took her hand, the only part of her that had come through fully, dragging her through the shattering mirror just before the cracks reached the frame, the entire structure trembling for a few moments, teetering on its feet. He pulled her tight in against him as with a final, ear-splitting creak, the ice glowed brilliant white before fading back to its usual sheen. One could no longer travel from the limbo in which they currently found themselves to the corporeal world. Constance was trapped with him.

He looked down at her, slumped limply against his body, her eyes closed, his arms around her frame the only thing keeping her upright. Once again he felt the anger rise within him like bile in his throat.

"You really are making quite a habit of this," he growled. Did she think him such a fool as to fall for the same trick so soon? He had credited her with more intelligence than that. Unable to stop himself, he smacked her hard around the face to bring her round from her undoubtedly false slumber, but she did not respond. She simply lay there in his arms, her cheek reddening from the force of the strike and the heat from his skin. Her expression was neutral, peaceful almost, no sign of having felt the blow, and as he placed a hand lightly on her chest, he found her heartbeat to be slower than the rapid pounding of fear he would have expected to feel had she been attempting to keep up a pretence. He choked back a sudden tide of remorse as he carefully slipped one hand under her knees to pick her up and carry her across to the bed, arranging her as he had done before and taking up his previous position at the foot.

"I'm watching you," he warned her softly, but he was convinced now that her collapse was genuine and she would not make another attempt for freedom once his back was turned. The Devil sighed, softly stroking her ankle above the strap of the spindly red shoe that he had picked out for her. He had been waiting for two and a half decades, and now the prize was finally his, with no chance of escape. He could wait a little longer for her to come round. It gave him time to think, time to reflect, time to suppress the creeping feeling of guilt that was threatening to drag him under. He thought back over the tumultuous years that had passed, and the fraught circumstances that had characterised each of their meetings and, indeed, partings. When he had first come across her in Cambridge all those many moons ago, he had known that Constance was something else. Something special. She was such an accomplished young witch, so innocent, so beautiful, and so very like _her_. The Devil shook his head; perhaps that had been his downfall. Like Scottie seeing the image of a woman long dead in a stranger's face in _Vertigo_, so had the Devil seen _her_ image in Constance, and, like Scottie in _Vertigo_, his obsession with her had grown and grown. He simply had to have her, and perhaps this time, the tryst would not be doomed to failure.

He had known that he could not approach her in this form, his most comfortable manifestation, and so he had created himself a new body, a new name, a whole new identity. The shape had been younger, more desirable to an eighteen-year-old girl, but he had forgotten that with the age of the body, so comes the age of the mind. Unable to control the raging impulses that the less mature frame had moulded into his mind, their first tentative romance had ended in a tragedy that was to colour her perception of him for the rest of her life. He regretted it, bitterly. Not a moment went past when he could forget what had happened that fateful night, nor when he could stop himself from wondering wistfully what might have happened had his urges not overcome him in such a hideous fashion. He had not taken that shape again, except once, out of necessity. Five years ago, to charm the bookseller who was so intertwined with the magical community. And, as he had done before, he had lost control, nearly killing the woman as he had thrown her across the room. There was little wonder at Constance's wish to escape from every other situation in which they had found themselves alone together. Beneath all the other emotions that he had read in her face whenever they had met; beneath all the anger and the sadness and the worry, there was always an undercurrent of fear. He remembered their meeting on the bridge five years ago, when he had left her to her fate after gaining her pact. It had torn him apart to leave her so vulnerable, but he had to maintain his dominance over the situation. Any slip would have been fatal, as it so nearly proved when the Void had shed his tight controls and taken on a destructive mind of its own. He had panicked then, for the first time in many a year. He'd had no idea what to do, until Constance had inspired him, running into the Void after Amelia in a show of unyielding solidarity. He thought that he had made progress then, in the aftermath of the Void's closing, but when he had taken her by force earlier in the day, she had proved just as eager to escape his company as she had always been.

He wondered idly what had made her change her mind so suddenly. He remembered her words, and the sorrow in her voice as she had said them.

"_One life has already been lost tonight._"

Who had died? Who was so important that Constance had acquiesced to him so meekly? It was not the stance that he had expected from her when she had appeared out on the battlefield, her head bowed, her appearance crumpled and dishevelled. She had seemed so different to the fierce, proud woman that he had so often admired. Something terrible must have happened within the walls of the castle to facilitate the change, and when she woke, he would find out. He knew that it took momentous incidents to change Constance's outlook on life, and he was again returned to the night of their first parting all that time ago, wishing that something, anything, could be done to remedy the situation. But Constance, as loathe as she would be to admit it, was very much like himself in that respect. She had a long memory, and even less of an inclination to forgive than to forget. The damage that a few moments of unchecked lust had wreaked was irreparable.

He moved up the bed slightly, to get a closer look at her face. She really did look so much like _her_ tonight, with her hair spread out over the pillow in a dark wave, its natural kink catching the soft light. There was something about seeing her so at peace that made the parallels so much more striking. Her features seemed less angular, almost as if there was something hiding slightly beneath the surface. The Devil's breath caught in his throat as he brushed his fingertips down her pale visage. There _was _something hiding beneath the surface. It was _her_. In that moment, the Devil had found the answers to his questions. He knew why Constance had returned to him, and he knew what she had planned to do once she had reached him in limbo. He knew the reason why she had not looked him in the eye as she had spoken to him outside the castle, and he rested his head in his hands in despair at the thought of what she expected him to do.

Constance was hosting the spirit of the Angel, and she had come to him to re-imprison his true form.

She had come to him to die.


	20. Chapter 20

**The Last Stand**

**Twenty**

Constance opened her eyes to a familiar red and black room, her mind immediately confused. When she had come through the mirror, ostensibly for the final time, she had not known quite what would happen, but she had not expected to survive long after the transition from corporeal realm to mysterious limbo. She had been prepared for this, prepared for the sacrifice that she knew she had to give. When she had been travelling between the two glasses, she had already said her goodbyes to the people she cared about most, and who cared about her. She had been remarkably at ease. She had known what was to come, and she had accepted it.

But then, something had happened, something unexpected that Constance could not explain. She had thought that it was the end as she felt the Devil take her hand and pull her through the brilliant, sparkling atmosphere that had formed around her. She had heard his voice, words incomprehensible, and she had embraced the finality of death. In the back of her mind, she had felt the spirit of the Angel, struggling for dominance with her own psyche, willing her in ways that she could not control. She had felt the battle, threatening to tear her pounding head apart as the supernatural force that seemed to have taken over her existence vied for freedom within its natural realm, the world of the metaphysical. The pain inside her cranium was searing, intense, as if her skull was being cleaved in two. She felt her body fall against something solid and unnaturally warm, but her mind was elsewhere, unconcerned as she tried to keep a coherent grasp on her mentality. Then there had been nothing, blissful nothing, freedom from the pain and emotion that had tormented her for the past hours. She had thought that it was the end.

But it was not. She was here once more, lying on the bed that she had been shackled to just a short time before. Her surroundings were unaltered; the sultry heat in the room just as oppressive and heavy as it had always been, the flickering light casting the same eerie shadows. Was she awake, alive? Or was this her afterlife, an eternity in the company of an almost life-long adversary? If so, had she been successful? She did not want her sacrifice to be in vain, although it was not for any egotistical reason. If her and the Angel's plan, if it could be called such, had not worked, then the others in the castle were still at the mercy of the terrors of the ninth circle, still doomed…

Constance made to sit up, suddenly alert, her nervous sense of hyperawareness heightened by her debilitating bewilderment, but a hot hand on her shoulder forced her back into a horizontal position. She looked across at its owner. The Devil was sitting on the edge of the bed, his eyes downcast, avoiding her gaze. Once he had stopped her from getting up, he withdrew his hand quickly, as if he had been stung; afraid to touch her despite the tactility he had shown on all their other meetings.

"You seem confused," he said, moving around the bed to her side. "Let me take this opportunity to assure you that you are still alive."

Constance opened her mouth to speak but she could not formulate her tumultuous ideas into words. How had she survived? What had happened as she was coming through the mirror? She cast a glance around the room as best she could from her prone position, and her heart leapt in her throat when she saw the mirror. It was smashed, jagged lines splintering its surface from the impact point in the centre to the ornate ebony frame, the room reflected a thousand times in geometrical slivers that patterned the ice. This was it, the end of the line. There was to be no escape from the room. She closed her eyes, wondering why she was even contemplating an escape that was now rendered impossible. When she had made the decision to play host to the Angel's spirit, she had not held any intention of trying to back out of the bargain at the last minute, of trying to cheat the Devil again. She had already evaded her fate too many times to try once more, not in the dire circumstances, a situation more desperate than she had ever known before.

She felt something whisper in the back of her head, another force that was not a true part of her taking up residence within her consciousness. The spirit of the Angel was still there, still biding her time and still unnerving Constance with her presence. In the time that she had hosted the spirit, Constance had been acutely aware of herself and her actions, never quite sure if she was in complete control or if the spirit had taken charge without her realising. She would not put anything past the Angel, just as she would not put anything past the Devil. She remembered his presence in the room and her eyes shot open again, finding his in the flickering gloom. They were deep red, a richer colour that the dark chocolate that she had fallen for all those years before at university, and this time, they were far from soulless. The burgundy irises spoke eloquently of despair.

"Connie," he said, his voice melancholy. "My Pandora."

Constance did not have the will to correct him. Her head was still reeling. She simply watched him, mute, as he shifted closer to her, inch by inch. He kept his hands folded in his lap, almost as if he was making a conscious effort to show that he could be trusted to keep his wandering touch to himself. His demeanour was so different to the quietly confident norm that Constance was used to, and this unnerved her even more. She had seen him panic, she had seen him contemplative, but she had never seen this almost mournful despondency that seemed to have enshrouded him. He seemed desolate, lost almost.

"Why did you do it?" he continued, before shaking his head. "Oh, I know why. You would never pause to save yourself when you could save the rest of your sisterhood, the rest of the world. What small price was your life to pay? But you misjudged me, Constance. You both did."

Constance swallowed hard. The Devil knew. He had found out that she was hosting the Angel's spirit, and now she feared his reaction. He did not seem angry, quite the opposite in fact, but she knew how much his character could change within a fingersnap, from disarmingly charming one moment to murderously violent the next. She watched him nervously, wondering if and when he was going to pull out of this depression, waiting for him to continue.

"You agreed to host her spirit," he said. "She believed that I would kill you as soon as I laid eyes on you, recognising that she was residing within your soul. The sacrifice would be made, her spirit would be freed and she would imprison me once more like she has intended to do since before time began. You have greatly undervalued my feelings for you, my dear."

His eyes were getting darker now, moving towards the brown end of the spectrum, looking so horribly human.

"The Angel and the Devil have been destined to live in a never-ending conflict since their inception," he said. "But why is this? Why do we two entities clash?"

Constance could not tell whether he was speaking to her or to the Angel, or indeed to both of them. To him, there appeared to be no difference, Constance and the Angel were now one and the same.

"Because you hate each other," she suggested. "The constant juxtaposition of good and evil." But there was something in the back of her mind that Constance could not entirely forget. What had Enid said when the Angel had been bargaining with them in the castle? _Not every angel is all good. Nor every demon all bad._

The Devil shook his head.

"It's not that," he said. "It can't be that, how can it be? I don't hate you, my Angel, _I love you_."

The words resounded through the silence in the room, echoing around Constance's head. _I love you. _It didn't seem real, it did not seem like it could be true, coming from the mouth of the Devil like it did. How could such a demonic being be capable of the higher emotions? But his eyes, deep ebony wells by this time, were completely earnest as he repeated the words. _I love you._

"I have always loved you," he said, and although he was looking her directly in the eye, this time Constance knew that he was not speaking to her, but to the other force that was living, breathing inside her mind. "Since time immemorial. But destiny would not see it that way. You would not see it that way. And then I met Constance, and she was just so much like you that I had thought I had found my salvation. But she just wasn't _you_."

It was unsettling, being talked to as if she was not there, and Constance wanted to say something, but words failed her. What could she say? The Devil had declared his undying love, not for her but through her, almost.

"You thought that I would kill her? How could I? Not when she was the only thing I had that would connect me to you. And when I saw your spirit in her face, did you think that would serve to hasten my hand? That would make me even less likely to act, Angel!"

"It is the only way," she whispered. "I cannot allow your true form to return to the corporeal realm."

Was that her speaking or the Angel? Constance couldn't tell, but it did not matter. Whoever it was controlling her words at that point, the sentiment was the same for both women. The sacrifice had to be made, whether the Devil wanted it made or not.

"But why?" The Devil was pleading now, almost on the verge of breaking down. "Why do we always have to be on opposing sides?"

"_Because I am sworn to protect, and you to destroy_." This time, Constance knew that the voice was not her own. "_Because my physical form has gone, and yours lives on. Because we simply cannot be._"

"But why not?"

The Devil's voice was choked, pearlescent tears of liquid ruby running down his face. The colour was too bright to be blood, but it still unsettled Constance. She closed her eyes, desperately trying to establish her role within the scenario. Was she merely a vessel through which the two metaphysical entities that pre-dated time itself could commune, or did she have a more central part to play? She didn't know, so she focussed instead on the facts that she was sure of.

Firstly, the Devil's true form was on its way back to the corporeal realm, and once it did so, Cackle's and subsequently the rest of the world would be doomed. The women and girls she thought of as her family would be lost forever. Secondly, she was here, in the Devil's limbo, and there was no way that she could get out again. In short, she had nothing to lose. Nothing except her life, and what sort of a life would she have if she remained here, the Devil's concubine, watching him wreak destruction upon the world that she had once been a part of forever more? It was no life that Constance would choose.

The battle between the Angel and the Devil aside, Constance knew that the only way to vanquish the Devil and be rid of his threat forever was her sacrifice. That was what it took, and that was what would be done. She slipped off the bed, her head and body still aching from the strain she had been under throughout the day, from all the terrible things that had happened. She thought of Della, lying cold and lifeless on her bed, yet another unfair sacrifice.

"This is for you," she whispered. She looked across at the Devil, still perched on the side of the bed, not looking at her.

_I know what you're doing_, said a voice in her head, _and I thank you. _

Constance raised her casting fingers above her head, muttering the words of the spells she required without giving true voice to them. Simultaneously, the Angel's smooth voice began to flow from between her lips, talking to the Devil, distracting him, preventing him from looking in her direction. If he knew what she was doing then he would do everything in his power to prevent her, this Constance knew. She also knew that she did not have the strength to both cast the spells she needed to and hold him off at the same time.

"_You know that there must always be opposition in the world, demon,_" said the Angel gently. "_There must always be balance."_

Constance closed her eyes; it was hard enough to concentrate on her task without the added disturbance of the Angel's mind entangling with her own.

"_I have to maintain the balance. I cannot let you destroy everything I work to protect."_

The magic was cast, and Constance gave a small sigh of relief. There, in a barrage above her, was a swirling cloud of lethal magic, magic she had never thought she would ever have to cast, much less to use on herself. Soon it would all be over, the pain, the suffering, the constant fear of what the Devil would do next. All she had to do was let the cloud lower over her.

"_This is the only way."_

Constance let her arms drop to her sides heavily, the effort of the powerful sorcery having truly exhausted her.

"This is the only way," she echoed.

The Devil looked up on hearing her voice and his eyes widened on seeing the cloud coming down to envelope her. He hared across the room.

"No! No!"

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**Note:** To be continued...


	21. Chapter 21

**Note:** Well, thank you again, the last few chapters seem to have gone down a storm! This is another from the Devil's POV, and believe me, everything is go now. Without further ado, I present...

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**The Last Stand**

**Twenty-One**

"No! No!"

The Devil was not sure quite why he was so set on preventing this sacrifice from occurring; whether it was because it would result in Constance's demise or his own eternal damnation. Either way, he knew that he had to stop it, he had to save the stoic woman who was dying in front of his eyes. He ran across the room, towards her hunched figure, crumpling as she was under the force and effects of the spell.

"No, Constance, stop this, don't be ridiculous!"

He reached the cloud that enveloped the deputy-headmistress, the air so saturated with visible magic that he could almost feel the glowing particles beneath his fingers as he reached through the swirling mist towards her. A bolt of blue lightning crackled through the air and shocked him away from the perimeter, a bolt of pure, raw magic. The Devil looked around, eyes darting, trying to find the source of the power. Was this simply the witch's final defence kicking in like it would always do when she was on the verge of death? No, surely not, this was different, more forceful. It took a few moments for him to realise that the magic had come from Constance herself. He could see her through the fog of magic, bent double with one arm crossed across her chest, her lungs no doubt aching from breathing in the magic that was surrounding her, killing her. The other arm was outstretched, and the Devil could see the last remnants of the sparks on her fingertips. She was getting ready to cast again, determined to keep him away from her and stop him from interfering in her noble mission. Momentarily her grip around her ribcage tightened as she gave a small exclamation of pain. The Devil already knew that she would not have the strength to cast again, not with the rate that the magic was affecting her and her hold on life was deteriorating. She looked up, her eyes boring into his. They were full of the steely determination and tenacity that he had always admired in her, but behind that, somewhere deep inside, he could see her pain, see her fear at crossing this final boundary into the unknown that was death. She may have chosen her path, but that did not mean that she could not feel trepidation when the time came to follow it. He reached out towards her again, but an imperious voice stopped him in his tracks.

"Leave her," it commanded. "This is the way she has decided it must be, for all of us. You cannot change her will."

As loathe as he was to leave Constance and give up his fight, the Devil was forced to turn and confront the voice, the Angel's voice, no longer coming from within Constance. He moved away from the fog of magic towards the shimmering light that was manifesting in the opposite corner of the room. The Angel's spirit was leaving Constance, ready for when her host body would die and she would be ready to imprison the Devil's true form beneath the ice forever.

The demon heard a low growling in the back of his mind. He was still connected to the beastly form below, he still shared the same superior consciousness with it; after all, it was from the true form that the metaphysical forms came. If that form was imprisoned for all time then the consciousness would be imprisoned too. He would never be able to create himself a new form like this one. A sense of desperation came over him. He didn't want to go back, he didn't want to give up this semi-corporeal, semi-metaphysical existence. Setting the power and the evil deeds aside, he found the mortal realm so utterly fascinating. He could have remained as an observer there for an eternity. Perhaps there was still time, perhaps he could strike a bargain. He would do anything, even forfeit his magic if he had to, as long as he could continue to watch humanity, to watch as bonds like those between the witches of Cackle's were nurtured and strengthened. Oh, the bitter irony that it was such an unbreakable bond that had led him to this situation in the first place.

"It's no use," said the Angel, as if she could read his thoughts. The Devil had never known whether she had been able to or not; he had never been able to detect any unwanted intrusion on her part and it had always irritated and intrigued him in equal measure. "There can be no bargaining now. It's too late. The process has already been catalysed. All that remains is for me to finish the job. Properly this time."

The Devil felt his brewing anger break through the other desperate emotions that he had been feeling, and he lunged forward at the Angel's newly-manifested form with a guttural growl. This was the woman that he loved, loved with a passion unknown to any mortal, and he was locked in magical combat with her. This was their paradox, doomed to remain in eternal opposition, controlled by forces even greater than themselves. Forces that were too great even for physical forms. He shot a spell at her, hating himself for hurting his Angel in this way but wholly unable to halt the action until a cry of pain from behind him made him freeze in his tracks. He spun round to see Constance collapsed on the ground, only just holding herself up on one arm as he legs gave out beneath her. He looked to the Angel and then back to her former host, watching her breath coming in ragged pants as the magic-filled mist began to thin and disperse, leaving her plight in clear view. It was obvious to him now; the Angel's spirit was still connected to Constance's psyche, and neither would be fully free until death separated them completely. In hurting the Angel, he was also hurting Constance, whom he had no intention to harm. Quite the opposite. He looked back at the Angel, his eyes narrowed, warning her that the perpetual fight that they had once again started was still not over, although he knew deep inside that it was only a matter of time before a victor was decided, and he knew that the victor would not be him.

He moved through the final dregs of the cloud towards Constance, his progress no longer impeded by the palpable magic. She made no attempt to stop him with a spell as he approached her; she was too exhausted by her ordeal, _too far gone_. The Devil shook his head. There was still time, there had to still be time. He sank onto the floor beside her, taking her shoulders in a gentle grip before her upper body collapsed fully onto his lap, no longer able to fight the inevitable. But she had to fight, the Devil thought frantically. She had to stop this, reverse this, she couldn't let this be the end.

"Constance, please," he said. "Please, fight, don't do this."

"This is the only way," she said, her choked, gasping voice barely above a whisper.

The Devil howled in his frustration. She had left him with no choice. He had always promised himself that he would never do this, that no matter the magic he used to coerce her, he would never sink to this depth. A person never truly died until their soul was released into the ether. That was why those who sold their souls to the Devil were doomed to an eternity within his terrible inferno; their bodies becoming his property as well as their souls, their physical forms never quite perishing despite the tortures heaped upon them. He had never taken a soul by force. He had always allowed it to be offered. But this time, this time was different. This situation was truly desperate. If he held Constance's soul, she would not die.

He pressed his hand against the skin above her heart, watching it burn red as he tried to pass his fingertips through, into her body to find her soul. He could see it, visualise it: the warm, glowing entity at the very centre of her being.

"This is best," he said, determined to proceed, determined to keep her from death even despite the resistance that she was showing. He swallowed as he saw the white forming in her hair from the strain of keeping him out. "It is always better to live than to die, Constance."

She opened her eyes, glassy with unshed tears, and looked up at him, mouthing a single word.

"Never."

He physically couldn't continue; he was forced to withdraw his hand as she gave a final sigh, closing her eyes once more, her neck going slack in his lap.

"It's too late," said the Angel. "Despite your best efforts, it was always going to be too late. Constance would never let you take her soul, even if it was all she had to save her."

The Devil did not respond, carefully laying Constance's head on the floor and standing once more before moving to face the Angel. Her manifestation was complete, a solid form standing where her glowing outline had heralded her arrival.

"You killed her," he said pointedly. "If it were not for you, she would not have needed to do this."

"She killed herself," said the Angel. "And I did nothing to coerce her. She knew what she was doing. She knew that as soon as she volunteered to host my spirit. I did not choose her, Devil, she chose me."

The Devil shook his head.

"You could have refused. Besides." He gave a hollow laugh. "I thought it was against your nature to kill."

"One person!" The Angel sounded exasperated, desperate to justify herself. "One sacrifice to save thousands from you! How many more would have to die if she did not? And you can hardly be the one to reprimand me, considering the many innocent lives under your name. Think of the Liaison Children!"

"I, my Angel, am a demon. It is in my nature to destroy as much as it is in yours to protect. You said that yourself only a few moments ago. It is even more in my nature to destroy anything I consider a potential threat."

"Was Marlon Spinder a potential threat, then? Was Della's father such a harmful force? Did you kill him because he was about to vanquish you?"

"Marlon Spinder died of heart failure," he growled.

"He was a non-magician! He had no way to protect himself!"

"Marlon Spinder died of heart failure!" the Devil roared.

"And the coroner said that it could have been caused by 'an unnatural shock'! I can't think of any shock more 'unnatural' than you turning up in his back room unannounced! Did Della Jones know you killed her father?"

They were screaming at each other, fingers curled at the grab-ready like a warring married human couple. The Devil could see the absurdity of the situation; he knew that they could simply settle this with magic the way that they always had done, but they seemed determined on battling with words this time.

"I did not kill Marlon Spinder," he said, trying to keep his voice level. "He had a heart attack. It could have happened to anyone."

"A heart attack that was caused by you _casually _mentioning that you were about to kill his daughter because she was a possible threat to your otherworldly demonic power despite the fact she had no idea what she was!"

The Devil could not reply, for his adversary had spoken the truth. He had always known that Della was a Liaison, no matter how well her parents had tried to hide her, and no matter how much he himself might have feigned ignorance of the fact. He had waited until she was at the ripe age for coming into her magical skills, for the time when the Foster's Effect that had always plagued her became too conspicuous to be put down to 'bad luck'. And then he had gone along to the book shop with the intention of ending her young life before she posed a problem to him. Unfortunately, he had met with her father before he had the chance, and before he had the chance to… _deal_ with Marlon, the man had collapsed, clutching his chest and gasping for Della. It had unnerved him slightly, knowing that he had not caused this man's demise in any way other than simply existing, and he had left, dismissing the bookshop as a bad omen, thinking that if Della never came to the realisation of what she truly was, then he would be safe from her terrific influence.

The Angel raised her casting fingers, ready to forge the magic that would take him from this realm forever and banish him below the ice for the rest of his eternal existence.

The Devil closed his eyes. This was it. This was the end. The sacrifice had been made. The Angel had returned to her full capacity of magic and more. This was the end of everything.

He waited a few moments, but nothing happened. He felt nothing. Was this it? Was it over? He opened his eyes to find himself still in the room with the Angel, who was looking down at her casting fingers with perplexity.

"I don't understand," she whispered. "The power…"

"It didn't work," said the Devil.

"But the sacrifice was made," said the Angel, her voice panicked as she began to glow again. "I left her mind completely."

"Constance didn't give you enough power," he said. His voice was dull, emotionless; he felt elation and disgust in equal measure. He was safe from the influence of the Angel, she would not be able to fully vanquish him, but at the same time, there was Constance… Her sacrifice had been for nothing. All for nothing.

He made to cross the room towards her, ignoring the Angel and her continued exclamations of confusion, but halfway there, his progress was halted by a searing pain shooting through his chest, bringing him to his knees. He felt choked, as if he was drowning, icy water flooding his lungs and enveloping his limbs. This was the end, the end that he had expected and been totally unprepared for. He could feel his true form sinking into the ice, thrashing and trying in vain to save himself, but it was to be of no avail. How could this be happening? The Angel had not managed to use her incredible sorcery to vanquish him herself, she was fading before his eyes.

He looked across at Constance's lifeless frame. With his demise, so the limbo which they inhabited would cease to exit. He felt duty bound to return her to her own world, to return her body to its rightful resting place. He could not let her disintegrate along with his domain. If he could just summon up the energy to transport her away from here, then he would go in peace, he would fight it no longer.

He dragged himself across the floor, the pain excruciating. He could feel the ice enclosing, setting around him and freezing his physical limbs into place. He could barely move any more, collapsing about a foot away from Constance. He could just reach to encircle her wrist, and to his astonishment, he felt a thready pulse beneath his fingers. She was still alive, just, but if that was the case, how could his death be occurring?

"The road to Hell," came the Angel's voice, her form now completely faded from view, "is paved with good intentions."

The Devil sighed. He knew what she meant. Only Constance…

Then there was nothing. Nothing but ice.


	22. Chapter 22

**The Last Stand**

**Twenty-Two**

Constance looked around at her immediate environs, disorientated. Was this it, the fabled afterlife, that everyone theorised over and no-one could ever truly know until it was too late to tell those who remained? There was just white, white as far as the eye could see. Then again, Constance was not exactly sure how far her eyes could see. With no reference points in the seemingly vast, bright wasteland, she had no idea if she was viewing miles upon miles of empty nothingness or if she could barely make out an inch past the end of her outstretched arm.

Voices pervaded her perception, disorientating her with their comparative distance and closeness at the same time. Were they in her head, or was she hearing them from another source altogether? The sounds were muffled, as if her ears were stuffed with cotton wool, but she concentrated on making out the individual words instead of letting them all blur together. Occasionally soundbites would spring perfectly clearly from the fuzzy conversation.

_Marlon Spinder… Heart attack… Unnatural shock…_

_The road to hell is paved with good intentions._

Who was speaking? Who was saying these unnerving lines, and how did they have any reference to her? Constance guessed that they must have some sort of relevance for as far as she could see, she was the only person in the immediate vicinity. She looked up, now sure that the voices were coming from above her and were not part of her own psyche. Despite the unnatural feel to her hearing, Constance knew that the Angel was no longer resident in the back of her mind, no longer speaking to her directly in that manner. She had felt the presence leave her as the magic had begun to work, and she had experienced the lightening sensation in her head as the spirit left the confines of her skull for the final time. The words could not be a direct communication from the Angel, although they had seemed to be spoken in her dulcet tones. Constance thought over the sentence, still searching the area above her for some sort of sign to ease her confusion; none was forthcoming in the endless white.

_The road to hell is paved with good intentions._

Constance's stomach gave a jolt, making her suddenly nauseous. Was that where she was headed? Was she gong to hell for the good intentions that she had held in sacrificing herself to aid the Angel and vanquish the Devil? Surely not, for her intentions had been more that merely whispered fancies lost to the breeze; she had turned them into physical actions, actions that had had positive consequences. At least, she hoped that they were positive consequences. Briefly, Constance wondered if her death had been in vain, if even with her sacrifice and the Angel's manifestation, the Devil had somehow been able to turn the tides at that last, crucial moment. She guessed that she would never know, unless this was the afterlife in which the rest of the inhabitants of Cackle's would join her once they had met their ends at the hands of the Devil's true form, rampaging into the corporeal realm despite everything that had been done to stop him. Constance shook her head crossly; she could not afford such negative thoughts lest she be plagued with doubt for the rest of her eternity, an eternity that was no doubt beginning at that moment.

_The road to hell…_

Constance pondered the meaning of the phrase, so often was it used in everyday life as an offhand comment. No-one had ever really considered it in a literal sense of the words. Before she could give the matter any deeper thought, another voice caught her attention, a sharp, clear, wondrously familiar voice that was most definitely right next to her, not the misty conversation that she could not divine the direction of.

"Constance? What the blazes are you doing here?"

Constance turned, and her heart leapt into her mouth when she saw Della standing beside her. The younger woman looked wan, colourless almost, although she was dressed in the same purple ensemble that she had been wearing when she had first arrived at the castle earlier in the day. Indeed, the only points of colour seemed to be her sad grey eyes, shot through with streaks of moonstone blue like the broken capillaries of an alcoholic. She seemed wispy, as if she would float away on the slightest breeze, back to her usual slender self since she was no longer carrying the baby. Constance wondered at her own appearance, dishevelled as she knew it to be.

Della's arms were folded, her face carrying an expression of equal worry, confusion and sadness.

"Constance," she repeated, and although her voice had a slightly ethereal taint to it, her addressee could still make out the hardness of determination in her words. "Constance, I know that I am dead, and I am assuming, perhaps wrongly, that your being here in this monumental snowflake of a place, means that you have also been removed from the mortal coil."

Constance managed a brief smile at the words. This was certainly no trick; only Della could be so eloquent in their circumstances.

"No," she replied calmly, "You assume correctly."

Della's hands flew to her mouth, tears welling in her expressive eyes. She shook her head, and Constance held out her arms to catch her as the younger woman crumpled. Della was tough, far tougher than she looked, this Constance knew from experience, but even she could crack. Constance did not blame her for breaking down, after everything that had happened to the poor young mother; after accepting her own fate so calmly, she was now being faced with yet more tragedy. It seemed that death was not the end of one's troubles and worries after all, those no longer part of the living realm were far from at peace. Della fell to her knees, bringing Constance down with her.

"I'm sorry, Della," she soothed, stroking the younger woman's shoulders, trying to calm her down. "This is the only way."

"The only way to do what?" sniffed Della, wiping her eyes on the sleeve of her jumper. "What's happened, Constance? What's going on out there?" She waved her arms around, vaguely gesturing that the 'out there' that Constance knew to mean the life that they could no longer share in.

"The Devil," Constance began. It would not be fair to lie now, and why should she? Nothing mattered anymore. They had cut their ties with the mortal world. "To vanquish him fully, there had to be a sacrifice."

Della looked at her older friend sagely.

"And it had to be you," she said.

Constance bit her lip. She had vowed not to lie to her friend, but that did not mean that she had to impart every last ounce of truth. It would be cruel to tell Della that the life originally intended for redemption in this way was her daughter's; the emotions that she would have to carry for the rest of eternity would be crippling. She would feel fear for her daughter, constantly wondering what other evil entities might be after Carys's blood, always wondering if the Devil had been truly defeated or if he was still plotting to reclaim his prize. And Constance knew that Della would also feel guilt, guilt at Constance willingly swapping her own existence for that of her goddaughter.

"I offered," she said as a compromise.

Della looked directly in the eye, the emotions that flashed through her wide grey-blue orbs never seeming to settle until they returned to sadness, and she cast her glance down into her lap.

"So he's gone now?" she asked. "Gone for good? Carys is safe? Or do I have to watch the rest of my loved ones descend into this… this… this nothing one by one?"

"He's gone, Della," said Constance. She wished she could be more certain, but her tone was decisive enough for her young friend, who gave a satisfied smile. They stayed sitting on the floor, if the vast expanse of white beneath them could truly be called such.

"Constance," said Della, her voice seeming worn out almost, exhausted with the effort of her earlier outburst. "I'm scared."

The two words weighed heavy on Constance's already heavy heart. Her entire being felt weighted, solid, like she was standing still and everything around her was moving, as if she was the only thing that was _real_ in the entire space. Even Della seemed transient, ghostlike, always with a threat that Constance's very tangible fingers would slip straight through her pale, ethereal body.

"I mean," Della continued, extricating herself from the tangle of limbs that they had stumbled into and standing once more, "where are we? Is this the afterlife, and if so, where is everyone? Why is it just us two?"

Constance had no reply to the foreboding words. Della shook her head. Constance could not see her face but she could picture her expression.

"I knew I was going," she said. "From the moment my water broke I knew I wasn't going to make it. It wasn't just the pain, although I won't lie, it was the worst I've ever felt in my entire life. There was something else, something inside that was telling me that I had to get Carys into the world if it was the last thing I did, because I knew that it really was going to be the last thing I did. But I accepted that. I think it's a maternal thing. You've got something so totally dependent on you that you'll just do anything to keep it safe. Even die if that's what it takes."

She turned.

"You're the same. You might not be a mother, but you knew that you'd do anything to protect Cackle's."

Constance nodded. She would always be willing to sacrifice herself to save the girls, to save the other staff, even without the influence of the Angel. The Devil had commented on it more than once.

Suddenly, Della seemed to tense.

"Someone's coming," she said. "Something's here, someone else."

Constance's heart skipped a beat. She couldn't feel anything, couldn't sense an impending arrival herself, but that did not stop her feeling a terrible fear; who else had been sentenced to share their fate? Who else had fallen victim this night? Had the Devil's awful plan worked? She looked around frantically, scrambling to her feet as she tried to find the 'someone' that Della described.

"Over here," came another familiar voice, this one far less welcome than Della's had been. She turned to see the Devil a little way away. The Angel was with him, and they both seemed even less real than Della did, even more phantomesque. She could see the Devil's chest through his crossed arms.

"We don't have long," said the Angel. "Spirits can never stay long once the corporeal form is vanquished."

"I-It worked?" Constance stammered.

"Of course it worked," said the Devil plainly. "Whatever made you think it wouldn't?"

Constance shrugged; she had no idea what had given her the impression, but whatever it was, it had been unshakeable. She felt strange, vindicated somewhat, glad that her sacrifice had not been in vain. She cast a glance back at Della, who was watching the two newly-arrived spirits with a wary interest. There was no need to introduce the Angel; Constance knew that Della was already aware of her mythical existence from Enid. She looked again at the Angel and Devil, standing side by side, showing no sign of the bitter rivalry that had coloured their lives since the dawn of time. Perhaps it was because they were equals now; both vanquished from the corporeal realm, both losers in their own way. She was confused; why were they here? She assumed that it was merely because this was the next stage after death and that they would be moving onto the next plane, but what was the next plane, and why weren't she and Della there yet?

"You seem puzzled again," said the Devil. "Tell me Constance, do you honestly feel that you belong here, that this is where you were meant to be?"

Constance thought, and she had to shake her head. The sensation of being heavier than the rest of this strange world that seemed to be floating around her was becoming all the stronger; the already pale and faded figures seeming to become less distinct before her eyes. This, she reckoned, even without prior knowledge of the afterlife, could not be right.

"Exactly," said the Devil. "You aren't meant to be here." He reached forward and touched her chest, above her heart. His fingers barely exerted pressure on her skin, but still they burned like they had always done. "Feel that?"

Constance narrowed her eyes. What was she meant to be feeling? All she could feel was her pulse, quickening under his intrusive touch. Her pulse… She swallowed.

"Yes, Constance, I shall say it for the second time tonight: you're still alive. You shouldn't be here. You were too accepting, you came here too easily. _You didn't fight._"

"But…" Constance couldn't understand, she simply could not make her mind grasp the simple concept that had been placed before her.

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions," said the Angel. "They were your good intentions, but not your road to hell."

It all became clear, and the realisation made Constance stagger slightly.

"The willing are always rewarded," the Angel continued. "Because you were willing to die, you are rewarded with life. The very fact that you would give up your life if you had to was enough to act as a sacrifice in itself."

"You're still alive," the Devil continued. "So what are you waiting for? Get back out there and live the rest of your life." He paused, and Constance could see him fading before her eyes. "A good life, without spectres of the past hovering over your shoulder. Go and be happy, for you have certainly allowed me to be."

Constance could not quite suppress a smile as she saw the Angel and Devil's hands unconsciously go towards each other. Yes, they were destined to be eternally in conflict, but that did not mean that these two supreme beings could not be eternally in love as well. Then they were gone, completely gone, and Constance knew that she would never see either of them again.

"You heard what he said," said Della. "What are you waiting for?"

Constance turned back to her young friend.

"Come with me," she said. "Come back to life with me."

Della shook her head.

"I don't think it works like that for me," she said, placing a hand over her heart, where Constance knew she could feel no pulse.

Della was fading too by this point, but Constance didn't want her to go. She didn't want to leave her, not when they had come so close once again.

"Just go," Della choked. "Tell my baby I love her. Go!" she cried. "Don't waste your second chance!"

And then she was gone, and Constance had opened her eyes onto the familiar red and black room with a gasp. She was back, but how was she going to get out? The mirror was still smashed beyond repair, and she knew she could not simply transport herself away like the Devil had done so many times. She was trapped, truly trapped. Constance made to get up, to think clearly and logically, but before she could stand she was thrown to the ground once more as a violent rumble rocked the room. Feared flooded through her veins as she remembered the last time that such a quake had occurred, when the Void had been opened. Constance risked a glance at the ceiling of the room above her and saw it ripped clean away, the swirling vortex of the Void roaring above her.

In the wake of the Devil's destruction, so his domain was also destroyed.

Constance felt her breath catch in her throat as she surrendered to unconsciousness again in her fright. As the blackness enveloped her completely, she saw something shimmer into being in front of her eyes beside the mirror. It looked like a door, but before she could question its existence, she had slipped under once more.

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**Note:** Well, I couldn't kill her, really...

To be continued.


	23. Chapter 23

**Note:** Back in the mortal realm for a bit now, but we will be back with Constance soon, have no fear!

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**The Last Stand**

**Twenty-Three**

Amelia looked around the pupils, staff and allies that were gathered together in the great hall. The remaining teachers had decided that it would be best to bring all the girls together and work on allaying their fears, even if such a momentous task seemed at that precise moment to be fully impossible. The room was quiet but not silent, undertones of muted speech running around the walls. The girls were sitting in small groups, talking about meaningless subjects like the weather and the things they'd done during their holidays, never mentioning the tense and perilous situation that they had found themselves in. The other staff were wandering between the groups, joining in their talk here and there, and Amelia knew that the idle chit-chat was keeping their minds away from the terrible sacrifice that was going on elsewhere, in a completely different world. She looked at the pale, wide-eyed faces of her young charges. There was no anger in them, no bitterness or accusation, just fear. They did not blame her for their circumstances; they accepted them as being due to events out of their control. Amelia shook her head and forced herself to think of the present rather than to reminisce about the past or wonder, fatefully, what the future might hold. As she had said to herself so many times throughout the day, her duty was to her girls, and she knew that Constance would have said exactly the same thing had she been there. Constance… This time, Amelia knew that she would not be coming back. After everything that the school had been through and everything that Constance had already done to try and save them, it simply wasn't enough. She looked once more around the individual faces in the hall, fancying perhaps that she could hear Constance's voice in her ear reminding her to keep her thoughts where they should be instead of wandering off into daydreams all the time. Amelia looked at her two youngest staff members. Maud and Mildred had completed an unconscious circuit of the room and were stood off to one side, talking quietly. Amelia couldn't hear what they were saying, and she had no desire to eavesdrop. They had worked hard to help keep the girls calm in the midst of the madness that had surrounded their topsy-turvy day, and now they deserved a little time to themselves to grieve the losses of their friend and their colleague in peace before they were called upon again to act as leaders to these scared, impressionable girls. The trouble was, in times like these Amelia was all too inclined to see these accomplished and brilliant young women as girls themselves; nearly ten years had passed since their first day at the academy and Amelia could remember every day as clearly as if it was yesterday. Well, perhaps not every day, but certainly most of them. Mildred and Maud had been pupils that would leave a lasting impression on any teacher's memory.

It was so sad to have to consider the possibility that they might not reach any further potential after this night; that none of her girls might. There was always that terrible spectre of failure hanging over Amelia's shoulder, always that terrible thought of 'what if?' What if it all went wrong? Amelia did not like to think of it, but as headmistress, she was duty-bound to try and cover every eventuality, no matter how unlikely or unfathomable those eventualities might be. It was tempting to keep to the philosophy of crossing that particular bridge when they came to it, and although Amelia knew that she should have some sort of back-up plan in place, she had neither the heart nor the energy to try and think of one. She concentrated instead on the present, on taking in every last ounce of the atmosphere in the room. Her gaze moved across the room and her eyes followed Enid as she paced up and down the length of the hall, her face ashen and worried, so unlike the bright, happy-go-lucky girl that Amelia had always known. The loss of Enid would be even more of a waste of young talent than Mildred and Maud, since at least the latter two had already made the most of the chances that they had been given to shine, and Enid had only just turned over a new leaf after years of never quite achieving her full potential. She kept glancing up at the ceiling, and Amelia knew that her mind was definitely not in the room with the rest of them. She had advised Enid to leave Gareth and Carys alone to grieve the break-up of their fledgling family in private and reluctantly, the younger witch had acquiesced, although her concern was still clear to see.

Presently Amelia's eyes wandered over to the direction of Algernon. She was inwardly surprised by how calmly he seemed to be taking the entire situation; he was entertaining a group of first years as best he could with the tale of his being stuck as a frog for however many decades, with a few embellishments here and there that managed to raise the odd nervous smile before the girls remembered their terrifying ordeal. It was something of a running joke that Algernon was easily panicked, but in all the time that she had known him, Amelia had always seen him come through in times of crisis, despite his reputation for fluttering. When threatened by the Dragon Lord at his Riverside Retreat, he had helped to get the girls to safety without a thought for his personal wellbeing; when Constance had held her first fateful rendezvous with the Devil on Tower Bridge five years previously, it had been Algernon who had gone to bring her home safely in the wake.

A lump came to Amelia's throat when she thought of Constance, and she forced her mind elsewhere. Egbert was standing by one of the windows, looking through it with a mixture of despondency and anger. She thought of everything that he had been through, that they had all been through in those few short hours since the Devil had first made himself known once more. How much longer did they have to wait before they knew if they were safe or not, before they knew whether further action had to be taken in a desperate last stand before Cackle's fell to the dark forces that had haunted it for so many years?

Presently, Egbert's face furrowed in confusion, and he took a step back from the window before beckoning Amelia over. She joined him immediately, taking up the position that he had just vacated.

"Is it me, Amelia, or does it seem rather quiet out there?"

Amelia looked out over the ranks of the JHC, still silently assembled and waiting for their orders, waiting for their leader's ultimate return. There did not seem to be any change from the seen when they had last witnessed it, when Constance had ventured out to speak directly with the Devil… There it was again, the pain deep in her chest that ached whenever she thought of her deputy.

"It looks the same to me," she said sadly, turning away, but Egbert shook his head.

"Look at the sky, Amelia."

The headmistress obliged, looking up at the clear sky, dotted with stars, not a cloud in sight. The storm had enveloped the castle earlier in the afternoon had dissipated as suddenly as it had arrived, and it had arrived at the same time as the Devil's forces.

"Dare we hope, Egbert?" Amelia breathed, but daring or not, Amelia could not deny the tiny surge of light that had sparked into life within her heart. She took a step back from the window and concluded that it was indeed quieter; the low rumblings from the dungeons where the Devil's true form had been announcing its imminent arrival had ceased within a fingersnap. The air itself felt calmer, lighter. There could be no denying it: the Devil's influence had gone from the school, and this time, Amelia knew that it was gone for good.

"Yes Amelia, I think we do."

She glanced out of the window at the JHC, showing no signs of moving from their foreboding lookout, and another cold dread filled Amelia's heart, dampening the warm wellspring of hope that had previously begun to blossom there. They were still helplessly outnumbered, still helplessly trapped by the Devil's earthly minions, even if their paymaster had been vanquished, his lackeys still remained. Would everything have been for nought after all? Constance and Della, would their sacrifices be in vain, for although the demon's progress had been stopped, the castle still stood teetering on the brink of extinction at the hands of Pike and his army.

"Can you feel it?" Davina came up behind them, her eyes excited. "Something brilliant has happened!"

Amelia nodded, although she would not use quite the same phrasing as Davina. True, it was brilliant that the Devil had gone but the price that they had had to pay for his eternal damnation was far from glorious. So much death… Theirs was a truly Pyrrhic victory.

"Has he gone?" asked Mildred, joining the older witches and wizard at the window, peering out of the frame at the lines of the JHC. "Well, they're still there."

Amelia bit her lip, unsure of what to do. What would the army do know that their general was no longer giving the orders? Would they still attack the school if they saw fit? If Pike, he who worshipped the Devil, knew that they had been so instrumental in his ultimate destruction, Amelia had no doubt that he would have no qualms about wreaking his revenge upon them, and what of the rest of the silent foes?

"I've had an idea," said Mildred suddenly. "I just don't know quite how successful it will be."

"What is it?" asked Amelia, her faint spark of hope reigniting itself inside her. Mildred ignored her momentarily, running out of the hall in the direction of her art room and returning a few minutes later with her sketch book, throwing herself down on the floor and hastily drawing lines over the page.

"I'm not sure," she murmured to herself, "I've never done anything this big or lifelike before, but then, there's not much chance of those out there having seen the Devil's true form with their own eyes; I can use artistic license."

Amelia shivered as Mildred's drawing took shape, the fearsome image of the Devil's true form filling the page as her charcoal feathered over the page, almost with a mind of its own.

"It seems very lifelike to me," said Egbert, his voice full of admiration for the young witch's latent talent. "Do you think you can pull it off?"

"What are you trying to do, dear?" asked Davina, shying away from the line drawing as if it was going to bite her.

"I'm trying to scare the JHC into leaving," said Mildred. "If I can bring this image off the page and send it out to them, then they might be terrified enough to run away. They say they follow the Devil's orders, but I bet that none of them would know what to do if they met his true form face to face."

Amelia smiled; she had always been able to count on Mildred to come up with something to save the day. She cast her mind back to their first encounter with the Devil, many years before. Mildred and her friends had gallantly worked towards a solution to every hurdle that had presented itself, and she had not lost this ability.

"There," she said. "It's rough, but it's enough I think. Now, I need a proper vantage point." She left the room again, racing up the main staircase towards the windows that they had watched the JHC's arrival from. Amelia and the others followed, staying a little behind so as not to break her concentration as she lifted the picture clean off the paper and sent it flying down towards the first few ranks, watching it take its shape once more.

It roared, animal and incomprehensible, and Amelia could divine visible fear in the faces of the magicians below them, but they stayed steadfast. There could be no doubt in Amelia's mind that the majority of the vast ranks were enchanted, only there in front of them because they had been told to. Only Pike did not seem affected, his face breaking into a sinister smile as he took a step forward and raised his staff. He was looking Mildred straight in the eye.

The beast roared again, so very lifelike considering its artificiality, but this still did not deter Pike. He waved his staff and a jet of water flew from it, hovering in the air in front of him like a clear globule.

"Oh Christ," whispered Mildred. "That's done it. He knows it's not real."

"What's wrong?"

"The picture, it's only made of graphite, the water will wash it away into nothing like it would wash away a pencil line on paper."

Pike manipulated the bubble of water through the air, mockingly slowly, almost as if he was admiring the rainbow patterns that cascaded across its surface. He smiled evilly and the bubble burst, showering the roaring image with water. The picture was immediately destroyed, its variegated colours melting into black graphite as it ran down, falling into the ground. In just a few seconds, the magnificent mirage had been reduced to a puddle on the grass outside the castle walls.

"It was a very good try love," Pike called. "But you can always tell a construct. There's a fuzziness round the edges where your lines don't quite meet. Next time you should be slightly more careful. There's no use rushing things." He raised his arm, his staff high above his head, and Amelia could now clearly see the symbols from the _Legendarae_ glistening in the starlight as he began to cast. Who knew what sort of demonic magic he was conjuring? Amelia did not, but she knew that their small force could not hold him off, not when her own magic was waning. She had told the others that this was not a painful process, and that was true, but she was not completely numb to the sensation, and she was horribly aware of just how little power she had left.

Before he could get the spell off, however, something happened. Mildred saw it first, gasping as she grasped the windowsill tightly. Then Amelia saw it, a tiny gout of flame licking around the hem of Pike's cloak. She glanced around, seeing the army's other leaders in a similar position; ten magicians in total out of the hundreds that surrounded them.

"What is this?" roared Pike as he too noticed the flames and tried to move to stamp them out, but found that he was frozen to the spot. "What have you done, you crones?"

"When the Devil is destroyed," Davina was quoting, a small smile playing over her face, "so all his debts must be settled."

"I think the leaders of the High Council have got into rather serious arrears," Egbert added.

The next events were so quick that Amelia jumped out of her skin. Where the flame had once been a tiny, flickering spark, suddenly the men were completely immolated, their screams of pain echoing through the school as they burned, skin searing and blistering before the witches' eyes. Not content with that destruction, the fire continued to lick violently at their feet, catching at cloaks and robes and latching on, pulling the flaming wizards down through the ground, a crudely direct route to hell. Their cries still rang in Amelia's ears long after they had disappeared, the ground beneath them not even charred to mark where they had once stood.

"Well," said Mildred, visibly shaken from the spectacle. "That's those taken care of… What about the rest?"

Amelia didn't like to think, but forced herself to face the foe once more.

"You know, I don't think it's going to be as much of a problem as you think," said Egbert.

Far below them, the remaining witches and wizards of the Council were looking at each other with bewilderment, the general consensus being 'where on Earth are we?' and 'why are we here?' With the enchanters gone, so the enchantment was broken, and those who were under the spell were now free.

Amelia turned away as they began to disappear into the night, back to their own lives. She wondered how long they had been torn away from their families, from normality, but now was no time to be grieving the sorrows of those they didn't know. They had their own allies to mourn.

"Miss Cackle!" Maud's voice brought her back to her senses, shouting up from the hall. "Amelia, someone's coming!"

Amelia did not know whether their latest arrival was going to be friend or foe as they raced down the stairs towards Maud and the shimmering atmosphere she was staring towards. Only one thing crossed her mind as she came to a halt and the shimmer became a human shape. Could it possibly be that despite everything, Constance had survived, and was on her way back to them.

Amelia shook her head as the figure revealed itself to be not a person, but a spectre, a ghost of the past. She was not the person she had hoped for, but she was equally as unexpected.

Isabella Hallow was standing in the hallway, smiling as she held out a hand to help a second spirit through to the corporeal world…


	24. Chapter 24

**The Last Stand**

**Twenty-Four**

"Della!" exclaimed Mildred, running forward to envelop her spectral friend in a tight hug, but a firm hand on her shoulder pulled her back. She turned to see Egbert standing behind her, steadfastly refusing to let her go. She furrowed her eyebrows to question, and she saw the mingled wonder and sadness in his eyes. This was his family, his entire family, fully reunited for the first time since Della's conception.

"You cannot touch the ghosts," he said, his voice barely above a reverent whisper. "The miasma will not stand the surface tension to be broken. They will melt with human contact."

Mildred bit her lip, taking in the pain in his expression. How hard was it for him to stand his ground and keep his distance, to maintain the space between himself and the woman he loved, when reaching out to touch her pallid skin or kiss her faint lips would be an automatic reaction to her sight? She turned back to the phantoms in the hallway, looking Della up and down. The young woman seemed scared, bewildered, and with every right, thought Mildred. She had died in childbirth, and now she was back in the very building in which she had passed on less than a couple of hours after the terrible event had occurred, in the company of the mother whom she had ostensibly never met.

"Isabella," said Miss Cackle, "what's happening? I thought we'd been led to believe that the returning spectres were the harbingers of the Devil's return."

Isabella Hallow nodded, and Mildred could see the similarities between mother and daughter for a split second before she began to address the headmistress. Della had always seemed to look more like Egbert, but then again, Mildred knew that she had never seen Isabella; she had always accepted Caroline Spinder as Della's mother, just as Della herself had done.

"It is true. The Devil's ultimate return upset the natural balance of life and death and caused those long passed to return to the present. Those souls are now returning to their proper place in the Elysian, as I will have to shortly."

Mildred noticed that she made no mention of Della, but she said nothing, allowing the older witch to continue.

"But I have time enough left to tell of a discovery that I made before I arrived." She smiled at Della, squeezing the nervous younger woman's hand where she still held it fast after helping her through the existential barriers and into the castle.

"Throughout life, and indeed beyond it, we are told that the only certainty is death, but this is not true. There is another certainty, manipulated by the Angel and the Devil both for their own ends. The other certainty is choice."

Mildred's mind was cast back over the years, over the many different decisions that she had had to make in order to bring her to where she was now. She thought of their current circumstances; surely none of their choices had led to the trauma that they had just experienced?

"People choose to give their souls to the Devil," said Maud quietly. "Sometimes it may seem that they have no other viable option and that the sacrifice is the only way, but it is always the seller's choice that closes the pact."

Mildred shivered at the word 'sacrifice'. There had been too much talk of it in that evening, with first Della and then Miss Hardbroom. She looked up at the former, her grey eyes wide and streaked with the moonstone of the extreme tension that her body had been under in her final moments. Her fear seemed to have given way to worry as she worked her bottom lip between her teeth, almost as if she was waiting for approval. Isabella nodded in response to Maud's statement.

"A sacrifice, whether for good or evil purposes, is always a choice," she continued. Mildred thought back to the words that the Angel had spoken in Della's room earlier, when she had come to take up residence in Carys's body. That would not have been a choice; the minutes-old infant would not have been able to make a conscious decision whether or not to sacrifice herself for the greater good, and Mildred's blood ran cold at the Angel's cool logic, logic that she only now understood. Carys might be the true host, but the Angel was never going to force her into a sacrifice. She had been bait, requiring someone else to make that conscious choice and step into the breach. Mildred did not want to think of what would have happened if no-one had stepped forward; if Miss Hardbroom had not known that a magical connection was as binding as blood. Perhaps the Angel knew all along, perhaps she wanted Miss Hardbroom's body in the first place, and this had been the only way for her to get it? Mildred shook her head, not wanting to think about it. The choice had been made and the Devil had been vanquished. That was that, and there was no point in theorising over what could have been or what might have been. Why rub salt into an open wound?

Mildred thought back to the other sacrifice, the one that Della had made; the member of the bloodline who had to die in order for Carys to come into being. Had that been a conscious choice? Della seemed to know what she was thinking, or at least to have followed a similar train of thought herself. She nodded slightly.

"I died to bring Carys into the world," she said quietly, "and that was a choice, no matter the strange circumstances that it was made in. Maybe I would have died anyway, but I knew I had a choice, to give birth to Carys _or else_. I don't know what would have happened if I had given up, but I know I would never have chosen that path. Name me a mother who wouldn't choose life for her child above everything."

She cast a small glance sideways at Isabella, and Mildred already knew its meaning. Isabella had parted with her only daughter, given her up at birth, in order to protect her, to save her life from the Devil and the murderous JHC. She had never come into contact with her in a maternal capacity again; she had had to sever all ties with a single blow. A terrible sacrifice in itself, made all the more worse by Isabella having to continue to live with its consequences. Although Della and her birth mother had barely met, they had both made such awesome sacrifices for their daughters.

"But Della was not the only one with a choice." Isabella's voice had grown more urgent, as if she knew her time was drawing close and she needed to relay the message that she had come to tell. "I have been trying to enter the castle for the past few hours, but the magic and the Angel and the Devil have prevented my coming in their various ways. I needed to tell you that there is another way, and it is still not too late to save Della."

Mildred's breath caught in her throat, surely it was too good an opportunity to be true. Something stirred in her memory, and she recalled the faint shimmer that she had seen in the hallway as she raced towards Della's room in the wake of Carys's birth, racing to see Della but arriving just that little bit too late. It was the same slight pulsing that had accompanied Della's spectral transition into the castle just moments before. She had pushed it to the back of her mind in the ensuing calamities of the aftermath, but now she realised. It must have been Isabella, trying to get in, trying to reach her daughter and those around her to let them know the choice that still remained.

"Della's sacrifice was necessary in order to bring the Angel's True Host, that is, Carys, into being," said Miss Cackle carefully. "The Angel said that herself."

Isabella nodded her acquiescence.

"That is true," she said, "but it did not have to be Della's sacrifice. It merely had to be one of the bloodline."

"But who else is part of the bloodline?" Mildred asked. "Other than Miss Hardbroom who is linked in by magic, and who has… who isn't here anyway." She couldn't bring herself to say it aloud. "Della has no other blood rela…"

The word died in her mouth as the firm grip on her shoulder was let go suddenly. She turned round, and she didn't know why she had not thought of it before.

Egbert. Della's father. Her sole surviving blood relation.

"Me," he said levelly. He seemed accepting, although a little surprised. He gave a minute shrug. "It makes sense. The Angel's bloodline must come through one of us. I had given it no thought."

"It comes through you, Bert," said Isabella softly. "I've met your grandmother, she's a proper firecracker by the way, just right for our Della. She told me everything. You always held the key, until you passed it onto me to pass to Della."

Della's eyes narrowed to question, and then widened.

"The mirror," she whispered. "The magical mirror."

Mildred thought of the ice that stood upstairs in the attics, the ice through which Miss Hardbroom had travelled to meet her end. The ice that had once been a glass in a mirror in Della's house, a mirror gifted to her by an anonymous regular at her father's shop.

"The mirror was the Angel's portal between the metaphysical and corporeal realms," Isabella continued. "It passes down the familial lines as the blood does." She looked imploringly at Egbert. "Egbert, you had that choice, the choice to take Della's place, but you didn't know it at the time. You still have that choice, but we are fading as the Devil's influence over these realms fades. The choice must be made quickly."

There was silence, save for a small shimmer of magic where Enid conjured a chair for Egbert as his knees gave out under the weight of the revelations that he had just met with.

"This is…" he began, but words failed him. Mildred could not blame him. A snap decision between life and death, where two such decisions had already been made earlier in the castle, she would feel faint at the prospect as well.

"You don't have to," said Della. Her voice seemed choked, guilty. "Not on my account, at least. I knew what I was doing. I made my choice, and accepted the consequences. We simply had to give you the choice, that was all."

"If I had known," whispered Egbert, his hands curling into fists, "if I had known, when I was listening to her screaming in pain and tearing my own heart with it… but the Angel did not tell me…"

He stood once more, moving towards the two fading ghosts in the centre of the hall.

"There would be no question whether or not I would exchange my life for yours, Della. You are my daughter, and I would do anything for you. You know that by now, surely. I have had a full life, and now I am remarkably tired. You have a family to raise, and I know that is not the task for an elderly wizard scarcely able to contend with a school for a few weeks at a time without a weekend breather." Here he looked behind him and smiled at Algernon, who tipped an imaginary hat. "Besides, I have waited too long for this reunion already."

He stretched out a hand towards Isabella, and in that moment, Mildred could see the love between them as tangibly as she had seen the connection between Gareth and Della on their wedding day. In that sense, there was a softer side to Egbert's sacrifice. Whilst he might be leaving this life, leaving the friends and allies that he had known and loved, he was entering into the next life with Isabella, whom he had been holding onto for nearly thirty years. Their fingertips met, and Mildred knew that the wizard's prior warning about touching the ghosts reducing them to miasma would not apply in these circumstances. Almost immediately, he began to shimmer in the same way as the fading phantoms, his living body being entirely consumed into the afterlife.

The picture made a lump come to Mildred's throat. For the first time, and the last time, the family was reunited, as Egbert's other hand felt for Della's free one, and they were together, the little group that had been separated by their circumstances for so long.

"So what happens now?" asked Della nervously.

"We go on." Isabella smiled. "We go on to the next life, whilst you will return to the current life."

Isabella and Egbert were fading, more rapidly than Della's image was. She unlatched from their hold and took a step back, breaking the little circle that they had formed. Egbert looked around, bidding each of the gathered members in the hall a silent farewell. Mildred did not want him to leave; she did not want to see yet another member of their company fall victim to death in such a short space of time, but she could not articulate the sounds that would voice her concern. He had sacrificed himself to bring back Della, but it did not seem like the same sort of death that had already occurred. It seemed logical, natural, a sad occasion but a fitting one, a more dignified end to a dignified life.

"Farewell, Egbert," said Amelia. "We wish you well."

"Thank you," Della managed to choke out. "Thank you so much."

The forms were almost gone now, and as Egbert enveloped Isabella in a close and heartfelt embrace that had been suppressed for twenty-nine long years, they disappeared once more, forever into the Elysian.

Della sighed as she stared after them, her form still distinct but seeming to become less solid. Out of the corner of her eye, Mildred caught a movement, like a magical shimmer, and she narrowed her eyes at the new arrival in the hallway, taking a step back. The figure, half-hidden in the shadows, was completely unfamiliar to her, and she could taste fear creeping up at the back of her throat. After everything that they had been through, was there still more to come?

"It's natural to feel that way," the newcomer said to Della. "They're your birth parents."

"It's not that," said Della, turning. "It's just that I have no idea what I'm supposed to do now…"

Della stopped as she saw the man in the shadows, a flimsy spectre like herself.

"DADDY!" she screamed, running across the floor soundlessly towards him and throwing her arms around the spirit who could only be Marlon Spinder. Mildred knew that Della had always been closer to her father than her mother, despite loving both dearly, and she knew that she had missed him bitterly in the first few months after his sudden death. Even so, she had not been prepared for this display of softness, openness on the part of her friend. Della was not the most tactile of people; she acknowledged this herself, but there she was, fluid and cuddly in her father's arms as she refused to let go of him.

"You soppy thing," murmured Marlon, stroking Della's hair as she sobbed against him. "If I'd known this was what was going to happen I wouldn't have come. Hush my girl. We have to go now." He pushed her chin up. "I had to see my Della one more time. Look at you, all grown up, and all the things you've done. I knew you were destined for greatness, even before I realised your potential. So go on, go and raise my grandchild. She'll be the most magical witch in the world."

"I don't want you to go," sniffed Della.

"We all have to go sometime my girl. Now's my time, not yours. So go on," he encouraged, Della fading before their eyes. "Don't waste your second chance."

"That's strange," said Della, giving a hollow laugh. "That's exactly what I said to Constance when she…"

Della had gone, leaving the others in a shocked silence. Mildred turned over the words in her head. Della had told Constance not to waste her second chance? She looked up at Marlon, who gave her a knowing glance before he disappeared completely.

"Constance had a second chance," she murmured. "Constance had a second chance."

It was only a slim possibility, but she had to know. Mildred hared up the stairs towards the room where Della lay, ignoring the querying shouts of the people chasing after her. She ran into the room without a pre-emptory knock, just as Della took a great, heaving gasp and choked back into life.

"Della!" Mildred and Gareth exclaimed together, running across to the bed.

"I'm back," whispered Della. "I'm really back."

"Della, you were saying, before you disappeared, you'd told Constance not to waste her second chance." Mildred knew that she was bombarding the poor woman when she had only just come back to life after a no-doubt traumatic journey, but she had to know. If what she suspected was true, then they had very little time.

"I…" Della looked fearful before recognition spread across her face. "Yes, Constance… She's still alive, Mildred!"


	25. Chapter 25

**The Last Stand**

**Twenty-Five**

"_Constance… She's still alive, Mildred!"_

Amelia could not believe it; indeed she did not dare do so. Her thoughts were dragged in two directions at once, flitting between emotions but never able to settle to anything. When she had heard Della speak those fantastic words, her first and primal reaction was to silently rejoice, revel in their ultimate victory over the Devil. He had been vanquished fully, and the sacrifice that she had been so loathe to allow had not been required. Her deputy, who had come through so much and been prepared to give up so much for her school, was still alive. Constance had a second chance. But as soon as she had given serious thought to her inward celebration, the doubt and worry had set in. If Constance was still alive, if she had been given a second chance, then where was she? The school was paramount to Constance, it would be ridiculous to think otherwise after everything that she had done over the years. It was her home, Amelia knew that, and she knew that Constance would stop at nothing to return to it if she had been given the chance, but she had not returned.

Amelia closed her eyes, forcing herself to think rationally. There must be a rational explanation, there always was in these cases, but the trouble with a rational explanation was that one was required to be of rational mind before the explanation revealed itself. Standing in the corridors, with students celebrating their ultimate salvation and teachers and ex-pupils alike rejoicing in Della's return from her oblivion, Amelia couldn't concentrate. She slipped stealthily back to her office, avoiding being accosted by the deliriously happy Davina, who was dancing through the school like a lamb in spring. Finally, in the dark and quiet, Amelia could think about Della's words.

_Don't waste your second chance._

Constance had received a second chance at life, just as Della had, implying that her spirit had left her body. And when Della's spirit had returned to her body, it had done just that. Spirit and body reunited in the same place that the body had been left… wherever that was. Amelia shook her head crossly; there was something obvious that was missing from her mental wrangling and she just couldn't fathom what it was or where she should find it. A soft knock at the door forced her to face the present.

"Come in," she called, unable to hide the despondence in her voice. Mildred peered around the doorframe.

"Miss Cackle," she said quietly, frightened concern tinting her words, "I'm worried about Miss Hardbroom. Do you think she's trapped?"

It all fell into place then, the missing piece revealing itself in plain view. Constance had gone to the Devil, and she had been to the Devil before. Wherever she had died and been given her second chance, it was in the Devil's domain. Amelia herself did not know where this domain lay, but she knew that Mildred did.

"She may well be, Mildred," she said. "She may well need our assistance to return to our world." She paused. "Mildred, I take it that you know exactly how Constance arrives at these rendezvous with the Devil. She has never told me, and I have never inquired, but I know that it cannot be a conventional means."

Mildred twitched, almost imperceptibly.

"Mirrors," she said simply. "In the attic, there is a mirror, made of ice. It is the gateway to the Devil's domain."

Amelia thought back to Isabella's words to Egbert before they had disappeared. She had talked about a mirror, a mirror that had passed through the generations until it ended up in Della's possession. It was with a wry smile that Amelia acknowledged that it must be one and the same_. The mirror was the Angel's portal between the metaphysical and corporeal realms. _That was what Isabella had said.

In Amelia's eye, there was only one clear plan. Follow Constance through the mirror, and bring her back. The only question was how.

"Mildred, would it be possible for us to follow her through the mirror?" she asked carefully. Mildred nodded, but her expression remained worried.

"Yes, I believe so. I'm not sure… If she has not returned because she is trapped in the other realm, then the likelihood is that we would be trapped as well."

Amelia thought of all the instances, in fiction and in real life, in which such a situation had occurred. One person alone might be trapped, but more than one person might prove the key. She thought of their time in the ninth circle, when they had been trapped in hell and Constance, Egbert and Della had stayed behind to make sure they were all transported to safety. Sometimes, all that it required was for someone to remain behind…

"We don't know for certain," Mildred continued. "I mean, there could be another reason why she hasn't come back; I mean, I haven't had any contact with her since…" The younger witch broke off, unwilling to return to the painful moments that they had experienced just a short while before. Then she suddenly cursed under her breath, as if she had just realised something, and pulled out the small compact mirror that was almost ever-present in her pocket, breathing on the glass and scrawling tiny letters into the mist.

"Why didn't I think of it before?" she muttered, but then her forehead creased back into its worry lines. Amelia crossed the room and peered over Mildred's shoulder in the darkness; the mirror was simply emitting static and white noise.

"I've never known a mirror act like that before," she said. "Except… Oh my…"

"Mildred, what is it?" Amelia asked, the fervent and unadulterated hope in her heart beginning to turn to ice.

"The Void," she said weakly. "Della said she had this problem when the Void was moving towards her house. There is no evidence of the Void opening here, so that must mean…"

"The Void is opening wherever Constance is." Amelia finished quietly. She stepped back and looked Mildred in the eye. "Well there's only one thing for it then," she said. "I have to go and find her."

"I really don't think… You've already lost so much of your power…" Mildred finished weakly, and Amelia had to concede her point. She could feel the magical force within her growing weaker by the second, and she knew that was why she should be the one to cross the barrier and rescue Constance. She knew that her magic was lost, she was prepared for it. There should be no reason why Mildred, or any of the others, should sacrifice their own gifts. Amelia shook her head, for there was always the flipside to the argument – if her power had gone, then she would be useless to Constance, whose current state of incapacitation they were still unsure of.

"I owe it to her, Mildred," she said levelly. "After everything that she has done for the school, I owe Constance this much."

Mildred still did not look convinced, biting her bottom lip.

"I'm coming with you," she said stubbornly.

"Mildred," Amelia began, but then she stopped herself. Once again, she had to remind herself that Mildred was a fully-qualified witch, an adult capable of making her own decisions.

"I owe her too," she pressed.

Amelia nodded.

"Lead on, MacDuff," she said simply, indicating the way out of the office.

The two witches made their way quickly through the school to the attic stairs; luckily most of the students had since congregated back in the Great Hall for a well-deserved midnight feast and the corridors were virtually deserted. They reached the attics unimpeded and Mildred gestured towards the glass in the corner. It was a simple mirror propped up against the wall, no frame, just the reflection of the room itself, unhemmed.

"Do we have to do anything?" Amelia asked. "A potion, an incantation?"

Mildred shook her head.

"No," she said. "You just… walk through the mirror."

For such a simple item, the mirror held a strange power, both inviting and repelling at the same time. Amelia found herself drawn towards its power, but she did not know if it would have such an effect if she was not aware of its awesome abilities. She moved towards it somnambulistically, but at the same time a shiver crept down her spine at the thought of the deed she was about to undertake. She rested her fingertips against the surface, feeling the ice melt under her touch and the surface tension give out. This was it. She looked sideways at Mildred, who nodded her encouragement.

"I'll be right behind you," she said.

Despite her earlier thoughts on the matter, Amelia was quite glad that she had Mildred to accompany her on this venture into the unknown. She took a deep breath and stepped through the mirror, feeling a sensation akin to dampness on her skin. She carried on moving forwards, sensing Mildred's arrival behind her, reaching out ahead of her to find the next mirror, but she could not feel it. A sharp, stabbing pain pierced her hand, causing her to draw back with a yelp. Peering in the eerie gloom, she could see shards hanging in the air, razor-edged icicles suspended silently, only visible when they turned slightly and caught what dim light they could divine in this strange limbo.

"The mirror must be broken," Mildred breathed. "There's no wonder that Constance can't get back."

"Is there any way that we can fix it?" Amelia asked. "Will magic work?" Amelia was in completely strange territory, second-guessing her every thought.

"I've no idea." Mildred shrugged. "We can but try." She held out a hand towards the shards and muttered the spell under her breath. Amelia watched nervously, expecting them to either web themselves back together or to remain as they were; expecting anything but what happened. The icicles stopped their lazy turning, becoming tense and quivering.

"This doesn't look good," whispered Mildred, taking a step backwards. Amelia nodded her agreement, for at that moment, the shards drew together in a cluster, turning their sharp points towards the two women. The mirror was obviously enchanted to suppress any magical interference with it. If Constance was trapped on the other side due to its being broken, and if she could not fix it with magic…

"We've got to go back," Mildred said, and despite the fear in her voice, Amelia could also detect dejection, disappointment at their having to abandon their rescue mission. She took another step backwards, but her progress was blocked and Amelia heard her squeak as she found she could go no further.

"We can't get through," she said.

"Then we'll just have to go on," said Amelia, the calm tone in her voice masking the terrible fear of the unfamiliar that she was feeling. She made towards the shards, and equally, they came towards her, a faithful guard-dog protecting the entrance to the Devil's abode. Amelia shook her head. There was no turning back. She peered through the slivers, seeing a tiny point of light flickering behind them, changing from muted scarlet to deep aubergine purple – undoubtedly the home of a demon. If they could reach that point, then they would be through the mirror. They would find Constance, and Amelia would get her deputy back to the corporeal realm if it was the last thing that the older witch. She raised her arm to cast a spell, and before her eyes, the cloud of ice reformed itself into a grotesque, almost-human shape, hunched in a defensive position, ready to attack. Amelia could still see the faint light flickering behind it, and she knew that an all-out offensive was going to the only way through. Mildred came up beside her, and the two women looked at each other.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" she murmured.

"I believe so. On the count of three."

Amelia counted down, and their spells hit the ice at the same time. As was to be expected, the ice fought back, but Amelia and Mildred would not be deterred by this, so determined were they to reach their goal. They forced their way forward with sheer willpower, icicles exploding around them as they fought their way towards the light. Mildred put on a final surge with the agility of youth and managed to touch the flickering point. She grasped Amelia's hand tightly and with an incomprehensible and uncontrollable cry of part-fear, part-exhilaration, the two women found themselves falling through the glass that was twin to the one in the Cackle's attics.

Amelia landed heavily on her stomach, winded. She gradually got to her feet, aware of the tiny slivers of ice that fell from her clothes onto the ebony floor with a musical tinkle as she brushed herself down.

"Constance?" she called, looking around for her deputy, but the first thing that she saw was Mildred, lying facedown and unmoving beside her. "Mildred!" she exclaimed. The younger witch gave a groan and sat up gradually, and Amelia's stomach churned to see a dark mulberry stain spreading over the cuff of her once-white shirt.

"It's just a scratch," Mildred said, peeling back the cotton and viewing the cut before casting a spell to summon a bandage to tie itself around her hand, glancing a nervous eye at the blood-edged shard that had caused it. The floor around where they had landed was covered in ice; to the untrained eye it would look as if it had been snowing in the room. Amelia could not help but look back at the mirror frame that they had just emerged from. It was empty save for a few pieces of ice that were hanging precariously inside the wooden rectangle. The mirror was well and truly broken, and they were trapped here, but at least they were with Constance, weren't they? Amelia looked around, desperately searching for the absent witch, but it was Mildred who saw her first, pointing with her good hand and scrabbling to her feet, running across the room to where a figure lay slumped on the floor. Amelia followed at a more sedate pace; the effort required to cast the magic that had got them through the broken mirror had almost been too much. She joined Mildred, kneeling on the floor beside Constance, and took in her deputy's appearance. She seemed to be the same as normal, with no visible injury, save for the thick white stripe that now coiled its way through her long dark hair.

"Constance? Constance?" Amelia shook her gently but there was no response. Her pulse and breathing were as normal as could be expected, but she was obviously deeply unconscious.

"Miss Cackle," Mildred said, her voice strained, and Amelia's attention was dragged away from her deputy to follow Mildred's eyeline to the ceiling, the non-existent ceiling that had been replaced with the swirling indigo of the Void…

"This place," Mildred continued, "the Devil's domain, it's vanishing because he has vanished, and now we can't get…"

She broke off, and Amelia once again followed her eyes over to the mirror, beside which was the shape of a door. It seemed faint, as if it might just be an illusion, but the image was definitely of a door. Amelia remembered seeing it out of the corner of her eye when she had first fallen through the mirror, but she had dismissed it, too concerned with finding Constance. She should have known better, it was a well-known fact among magicians that you often saw the truth out the corner of your eye when it was being concealed elsewhere. Countless witches and wizards concealed under glamours and invisibility spells had been foiled in that way.

"Miss Cackle," Mildred breathed, "I've had an idea."

**Note: **The idea that you only see the truth out of the corner of your eye comes from Garth Nix's 'Keys to the Kingdom' series.


	26. Chapter 26

**Note: **In which I shamelessly borrow from Dante Alighieri and his Inferno… *Thanks Mr Alighieri profusely.*

* * *

**The Last Stand**

**Twenty-Six**

Mildred scrambled to her feet.

"I think I know where we are," she said excitedly, taking in Miss Cackle's bemused expression. "You remember Granny Cackle's Dante?"

The headmistress nodded, and Mildred found her own mind cast back to the exquisite tome that sat in pride of place on the top shelf in the library. They had consulted it all those years ago when the castle had been dragged into hell, and now Mildred was remembering its lessons as if she had read the poetic prose only yesterday.

"The first circle of hell is limbo," she explained, "the home of those who cannot enter heaven but who do not need to be punished." She looked around the dimly lit room, hoping fervently that her theory was correct. "In the middle of the first circle, there is a castle. What if we are in that castle?"

It made sense in Mildred's head; it would seem to be the most logical solution. It was obvious that they had passed into what was known by everyone as 'the Devil's domain', and everyone had assumed this to be hell. But what if it was not truly hell, but more of a halfway stopping point between the real world and the depths of torment that led to the icy horrors of the ninth circle, where the most terrible sin of all was punished – betrayal. Mildred had been honing this theory for five long years, ever since Miss Hardbroom had first made the journey across into the metaphysical realm, and now she was certain of it. She just needed some proof.

"Wait here," she said quickly, standing up and ignoring the throbbing pain from her cut hand. "I'll be right back."

"Mildred, what if…" Miss Cackle began, but she broke off. "Be careful, Mildred."

The younger witch nodded and crossed the room to the flickering door beside the mirror, reaching out for the handle but feeling nothing but smooth crimson wall. Mildred smiled, not fooled by the mirage, and she turned away. Immediately the handle became apparent under her fingers, she could just see it solidify out of the corner of her eye. She opened the door, almost falling through it in her haste to find her way to the top of the castle and proof of her theory. A small part of her thought it strange that the door was not locked, but Mildred simply put it down to the Devil's arrogance; if he had not expected anyone to get past the glamour that had covered the door – and was disappearing along with him – there was no profit to be gained from locking it. She raced up the set of stairs in front of her, navigating the castle blindly, trusting her instincts to get her to the battlements. As she continued to climb, she wondered if the staircase was taking her where she wanted to go of its own accord. She would not put anything past the metaphysical realm, so deeply steeped in magic as it was. Finally her ascent levelled out and she was facing another door. Mildred turned the handle nervously and stepped out onto the castle's open battlements. She took a deep breath and looked over, grasping the nearest stone for purchase to prevent her losing her footing and plummeting countless feet. Mildred's breath caught in her throat. There, sprawling below her, was hell, its remaining eight circles falling down and down towards the epicentre, the ninth, where the Devil was entombed forever. She could not even see that far down, so immense was the mass of fiery brimstone below her. Even so far above it, Mildred could still make out the mournful weeping of the damned, caught as they were in their eternal punishment, doomed to remain in their designated circle until the judgment day. The sorrowful sound was occasionally punctuated with a sharp scream of pain that was all-too-quickly reduced to guttural groan.

Mildred shuddered. She was right; they were in the limbo of the first circle, within the castle that the Devil had created for the use of those that dwelled there. The castle that the Devil had created… There was small wonder that the ceiling was vanishing into the ether before their eyes. They had to get out, but even if they left the castle, they were still trapped in hell, faced with terrors that they had never before given imagination to. They could try and cross the river Acheron, and return through the entrance of hell. They could make a slow and precarious descent, like Dante had done, and try and come out of the other side, through the ice. The ice… A thought struck Mildred, a thought that was both wonderful and fear-inspiring in equal measure. What if the ice that the mirror had been made of was ice from the ninth circle? What if, all that they had to do was escape was to replace the ice? Mildred looked back at the door that she had just come out of, knowing that the rest of the castle would be disappearing into the Void soon enough. Perhaps her route back to Amelia and Constance was already blocked off. She looked back down into hell, straining her neck to try and see the invisible ninth circle, far below her. It would take months to climb down, years even. But there was a quicker way down…

Mildred took another calming breath and, not entirely trusting herself, stood up on the battlement. If she looked directly down, she could see a clear pathway down into the darkness below her.

"Mildred?" Miss Cackle's voice came from the doorway behind her, and Mildred turned to see the headmistress staring at her in wild-eyed horror. "What are you doing?"

"Getting us out of here," Mildred replied. She swallowed. "Trust me."

Amelia nodded, her eyes glassy with fear and admiration.

"I always have, Mildred," she said softly. "I always have."

Mildred turned back, looking down at her final destination. She didn't even know if her plan would work, but it was the only plan that she had. She didn't dare look back in case the expression on her superior's face swayed her courage and she remained where she was. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes and performed a perfect swan dive into the centre of hell.

For a few moments, she didn't realise that she was moving, her descent was so graceful and slow, but suddenly the wind was whistling in her ears; blowing her hair back and making her eyes stream with the intensity of its fury. Mildred turned her face to the side to try and avoid some of the full blast of the powerful wind rushing past her. She saw the full horrors that Dante had described in his Inferno so close she could almost reach out and touch the lost souls that were mourning their enslavement. She was falling past the second circle, eternal abode of the lust-stricken, and it was then that she realised why the wind was affecting her so much – the punishment here was for souls to be constantly blown about with no respite. As soon as she had passed the edge of the third circle, her descent would not be so uncomfortable; the wind would not be blowing across from one side of the circle to the other and causing the mysterious gusts and eddies that were buffeting her along her journey.

She saw a young woman at the edge of the circle, reaching out for her, pleading to save her from this hell, but there was nothing that Mildred could do, and too soon the restless spirit was caught upon another gust. Soon after she found herself outside the influence of the dread winds and back to her silent, uninhibited falling, a strange and eerie sensation since she knew from her surroundings that she was gliding down with great speed, yet if she closed her eyes then she would not know that she was moving. It would have been easier if she could have remained sightless for the entire journey, but she found that she was compelled to open her eyes and view the human destruction, like in a nightmare when one cannot turn from the terrifying monster and run for cover.

She passed the third circle, final resting place of the gluttonous, and she felt a shiver run down her spine as she heard the triplicate growling of the Cerberus that guarded its gates. She was most certainly picking up speed in her descent, falling faster and faster past the fourth circle; its souls pushing their dead weights in never-ceasing contest, and the swamp of the fifth. Everything was so vivid it was almost unreal, like a film or a dream, yet there could be no denying that she was there, experiencing the things that Dante had described first hand. When she had first read the oversized book, cosy in the shadowed corners of the library, Mildred had not thought of the images and their descriptions as particularly frightening, but now, when she was inches away from the damned and could see their plight in glorious and gruesome technicolour, her view was changed. She could quite see why Dante had broken down in terror at various points through his journey, and she was not even as close as he had been to the evils.

As she passed the threshold between the fifth and sixth circles, clasping her hands over her ears to block out the ferocious and haunting cries of the winged demons that acted as guardians to lower hell, Mildred could sense that her descent was slowing. The air around her, still as it always was, was suffocatingly hot, and whilst she could not see any human forms on the ledges that ran around her suspended body, she could make out gouts of flames bursting from the walls. Mildred tried to remember the sins punished here, and she felt her blood run cold. The sixth circle was the destination of the heretics.

The witches.

A voice in her head, a terrible voice that she was sure had not come from her own imagination, roared the words that Dante had observed on the entrance to hell:

_ABANDON HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE!_

It was trying to draw her in, take her to the ledges to join in her punishment with the rest of those who had been found guilty of heresy and witchcraft in their time; doomed to burn forever more in their inescapable coffins as they had been burned in life, from one infernal flame to the next. Hell had recognised her as one of magical leaning and was determined that she should scorch with the rest.

This wasn't right, it couldn't be right, there had to be some other way. Mildred thought frantically, she was alive, she couldn't end her life like this. She had entered hell voluntarily; she had not be sent here as punishment for the sins of life like the evil witches whose names she heard whispered through the rows of flaming caskets. She used her craft for the good.

She thought desperately of Dante, wishing that he could provide some clues. Had he been a wizard? Mildred did not know for certain, but she had always suspected that was the case. How else had he been able to find the entrance to the afterlife whilst still living? How else had he survived the extremes that he had experienced. Dante had been a magician, and he had come through the sixth circle, so Mildred was going to do so to.

"No," she whispered as she neared the ledge, the searing flames missing her by inches. "No, you cannot have my soul. I will not abandon hope!"

That was it, she thought as the air immediately became cooler around her. That was the key. That was what separated her from the guilty. If she had nothing else, she had hope, and it was that hope that was the ultimate skeleton key to everything that had happened to them in the past five years. The Devil had spoken of an unassailable bond between the women of Cackle's, and it was hope that had strengthened and protected that bond. Why would they be here, Amelia and her, if it was not for the hope that they could rescue Constance from her terrible plight? The Devil had always said that he could not touch their bond, and it seemed only natural that his minions here in the circles of his domain were equally restrained by this uncanny emotion, this fierce and irrepressible hope.

She was flying downwards now, free from the snares that had pulled her in to the heretics, and the seventh and eighth ledges had passed in a blur of mournful cries and awesome images, the ten partitions of the eighth circle merging together as the thieves and the whores and the corrupt seemed to share in their myriad punishments together, all reaching out for her, their possible saviour, and all howling in despair when she continued to fall past them, intent upon her goal. The light from the fires and the lightning had now dimmed, and Mildred could only make out the vague forms of the giants on whose shoulders the upper circles rested as she entered the ninth and final resting place. It was here that she would find the ice, the Devil himself, and their salvation.

Mildred cast a spell to slow her descent and allow her to manoeuvre herself into a standing position so that she would not hit the freezing surface head first, but the impact after such a long fall still sent her sprawling across the glassy surface. Far beneath her, Mildred could see the faces of the traitors, frozen forever more in the solid rime that formed the bottom of hell itself. She started momentarily as she viewed Agatha's anguished visage in the ice, remembering the events that had occurred when she had made her first journey to this realm all those years ago, and the Devil had taken Agatha's soul…

Mildred forced herself out of her recollections, prepared to continue her task at hand. In theory it was comparatively simple: use a severing charm to loosen a piece of ice, and another to hew it into the correct shape to fit the frame high above her. As she set about cutting through the surface, however, Mildred's mind was full of misgivings. Would there need to be any enchantments to allow the mirror to work? Would the ice reflect of its own accord? The surface that she was cutting seemed to be completely transparent like a clear glass; she didn't know whether it was silvered in order to produce its shine. She shook herself crossly as she eased out her new ice. They would find a way. They always had. Since the place in which the ice had been formed was so inherently magical of its own right, Mildred was sure that the ice itself would hold mystic power enough.

Finally the piece was free, and Mildred smiled an exhausted smile at her reflection. The glass was mirrored on the underside, like a one-way glass in a police station, no doubt another punishment inflicted upon those below it, never able to see the outside world. Now, the most pressing problem was how to get the ice back up to the first circle. The journey had taken her only a few minutes in her descent, but she had not brought her broomstick and so she could not return to the surface with the same method. But Mildred had a plan, one that she had formed even before she had dived off the battlements. Admittedly, she had never performed the feat she was about to perform over such a large distance, or in such unusual conditions, but she was damned well going to try.

Smiling wryly at her wholly inappropriate language, Mildred cast a spell to bind the glass to herself before crossing her arms, closing her eyes, and disappearing…


	27. Chapter 27

**Note: **In which I pay shameless homage to a certain musical. *Nudges NCD with thanks.*

**Note2: **I don't even know if Scarlet Carson roses even exist, but they had them in _V for Vendetta_ and I love the name. I figured that the Devil could get his hands on pretty much anything he wanted...

* * *

**The Last Stand**

**Twenty-Seven**

Amelia looked around the confines of the rapidly disintegrating room, hoping that the barrier spells that she had put in place would hold out for as long as it took Mildred to complete her mission. Amelia trusted Mildred, and she would never say otherwise. It was her own powers that she was doubting; the constant strength that it took to maintain the magical forcefield that was protecting her and her unconscious deputy was sapping her already distinctly weakened magic. If they managed to get through this – Amelia shook her head in anger at her pessimism – _when_ they managed to get through this, she knew it would not be long before she was completely powerless, if she even held out that long. But Amelia knew that as soon as the shield repelling the destructive nature of the force of the Void fell, then they would be overcome, the time that the Void had spent fighting against her makeshift barricade serving only to increase its force of annihilation.

There were still so many what-ifs circling around in Amelia's brain, it was almost too much for her to bear. She forced her train of thought away from Mildred and the task that she was performing. The younger witch knew what she was doing and Amelia respected that, after all, how many times had she saved her school, her teachers, her fellow pupils and now her colleagues and charges in her time? Amelia just wished that she had been given a more precise and thorough outline of exactly what Mildred had intended to do, for her own peace of mind if nothing else. There was a slim chance that perhaps she would have been able to assist her young employee, although it was indeed slim. Amelia resigned herself to the fact that the best and most useful thing that she could do in the circumstances was to remain here, keeping Constance alive and comfortable and out of the danger of the vanishing room. Amelia had never usually been one to pine for adventure and excitement in her otherwise mundane existence, she much preferred it when life was, if not exactly ordered, at least not full of surprises. Perhaps she it was because she knew that she was coming to the end of one stage of her magical life, a stage she had never assumed she would face. Perhaps that was the cause of her sudden yearning to be in the centre of the action. She looked up at the swirling ceiling, and the vanishing walls that were slowly pressing in on her charms. There was no place closer to the epicentre than hers. She glanced into the corner of the part of the room that was beyond the boundaries of her spells but that had not yet been consumed, and something caught the corner of her eye that she had not noticed before. Beside the bed, half-eaten as it was by the swirling Void, there was a figure in the shadows, an almost human figure. She had not paid detailed attention to the room when she had first arrived, so concerned was she with Constance's welfare, but now that she had accepted, however begrudgingly, that there was nothing she could do for the stricken headmistress, these things were catching her eye. Amelia drew as close as she was able without walking through her own shield and looked at it more closely. It was a dressmaker's dummy, not a true mannequin but simply the wire torso shape, and Amelia guessed that it had worn the gown that Constance was now adorned with. The statuette was not completely bare, however, its metal frame still covered by a sheer white veil edged in blood red ribbon. At the bottom of the stand, a bouquet sat in a tray, and Amelia wondered at the expression of life that the fresh flowers brought to this metaphysical world. She squinted through her spectacles, trying to make out the different species. White honeysuckle for the bonds of love, pale lilies for death. Red tulips for a declaration of love, and Scarlet Carson roses for the ultimate expression of that sacred emotion. Amelia shook her head, still unable to fathom the complex relationship that Constance and the Devil had shared. The image was beautiful and haunting at the same time, the love and obsession it showed both touching and disturbing, like The Phantom of the Opera all over again. Amelia had always loved that story although the parallels sent shivers down her spine. It seemed a shame to let the flowers perish along with everything else in that unknown world, but…

Suddenly there was an ear-splitting crack and the air next to the empty mirror frame shimmered momentarily before a shape appeared, a human shape that fell onto all fours once its form had fully completed its manifestation.

"Mildred!" Amelia ran over to the other witch, who was picking herself off the floor with a cough. She seemed winded, but uninjured. She shook herself to recompose, brushing off her knees and readjusting her hair as Amelia fussed around her, checking that her first diagnosis had been correct.

"That is not something I will be doing again in a hurry," she groaned, looking as if she had just run a marathon in a record time. Amelia knew that magical transportation was a complicated and draining form of magic. As those ex-pupils she remained in contact with always said, there was small wonder that Constance was the only witch in the school who could do it with any kind of ease, and even she had difficulties if she was not one-hundred per cent healthy and uninjured.

"Were you successful?" Amelia asked hesitantly, horribly aware that her spells might cave at any moment and their time was running out. Mildred nodded grimly and snapped her fingers, a perfect rectangle of ice appearing between them, suspended in the air eerily, its polished surface reflected the swirling vortex that surrounded them.

"We just need to get it into the frame," Mildred said, "but I don't think I can do it by myself, not right after that."

Amelia knew the help that Mildred needed, and she knew that diverting her attention away from holding the shield might prove catastrophic, but she also knew that she could not let her down. They would have to move very quickly, to position the ice and get through the mirror before the Void could catch up with them. Amelia looked down at Constance, still unmoving. She nodded to her younger colleague.

"I'm ready," she said quietly.

"This is all going to happen quite quickly," Mildred warned, and together they muttered the words of the enchantment. As the glass moved forwards into its position, so the barrier spells immediately broke and the winds of the vortex that surrounded them began to blow relentlessly. The ice settled into the frame, and the spell ceased. In that moment, Amelia felt it, the final dregs of her magic leaving her forever. She was powerless, and the sensation, though not painful, made her gasp in shock.

"Mildred… My magic…"

Mildred nodded.

"I know," she shouted over the roar of the Void, making her way over to where Constance still lay and casting a spell to levitate her prostrate form. "Go on, we'll follow."

"But Mildred…"

"Trust me!"

Beyond them, Amelia could just see the bouquet, caught up in the swirling vortex, and she watched it disintegrate into nothingness…

"WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?" Mildred howled.

Amelia was forced to depart through the mirror. There was nothing else she could do; there was no magic that she could perform that would aid the pair. All she could do was slip back to the corporeal world; to trust and hope, hope so fervently…

A split-second later Amelia found herself back in the attics, and she looked behind her fearfully for the appearance of the other two members of their party. She saw shapes moving behind the glass and then, sure enough, Mildred appeared, guiding Constance's form. Amelia took her hand as she came through the ice, and not a moment too soon. Almost as soon as the witches had come through, the ice had begun to crack, splintering into pieces around them like the mirror on the other side had done, before it disappeared completely with a roar of the Void and the faintest of swirls of purple mist.

It was over. Amelia could scarcely believe it. The gateway to the other world had been closed for good, the Devil had been completely vanquished and most importantly, both Constance and Della had been saved when their fates had seemed to be so set in stone. It was a time for celebration, but those festivities could not begin yet. Mildred lay Constance down on the bunched sheet that had covered the mirror when it had been in storage, and Amelia knew that the tribulations that they had lived through would not truly cease until she was back with them, conscious, once more. A potion to revive her, that was all they needed… Amelia raised her hand to summon one, before remembering with a jolt that her magic had left her. Reassuring Mildred that she would be right back, Amelia left the attics at as fast a pace as she could manage, and headed for Constance's room, where she was sure that such a potion would be found. Despite the fact that she had been mentally preparing for this moment for the last five years, Amelia knew that it would take a long time to get used to life without the convenience of magic to provide assistance when the time called for it.

She reached Constance's door and knocked before entering, surprised to find it deserted and pristine, no evidence that a traumatic birth and reawakening had occurred here but a few hours before. Something disturbed the crisp white sheets, and Amelia picked up the paper and small bottle that lay neatly on the end of the bed.

_Mil, Miss Cackle, Miss Hardbroom, _read the note in untidy scrawl. _Algernon has taken Della, Gareth, Carys and me to the hospital, best place for them and I feel I should go as I delivered the baby. _

_Enid_

_PS – I have addressed this to you all as I have no doubt that you will all return. _

Amelia smiled at Enid's strong, fierce faith in her friend and her ex-teachers, and unwrapped the note around the bottle. It was in a familiar purple cursive.

_Just in case_, Della had written. Amelia looked at the bottle, a faded label saying _smelling salts_ just visible around the tiny brown vial. She smiled; even if she was not physically with them, Della's voluminous handbag was still able to assist them.

Amelia took the bottle and returned up the stairs to the attics, where Mildred was keeping watch for her anxiously. She uncorked the salts and passed the little vial under Constance's nose, and the younger witch came to almost immediately. Amelia had known that she would; she had known that as soon as she could be fully parted from the terrors of all that she had experienced, she would be perfectly alright, perhaps even better than she had been. Indeed, as Constance returned to consciousness, the only thing that betrayed the intensity of the past few hours of her life and indeed death was the streak of white that glowed so brightly in contrast to the rest of her dark tresses. She was going to be alright, after everything that had happened and everything that she had been forced to bear; after twenty-five years without the satisfaction and finality of terminating the connection with the Devil, she was finally going to be alright. It was almost too much for Amelia.

"I…" Constance began, but the headmistress cut her off, enveloping her deputy in a tight hug. Once she had relinquished her, Constance gave her superior a look that only Constance could give.

"I take it, from that, that I am back in the school?" she asked weakly. Amelia nodded as Mildred helped her to her feet and they began to make a slow but steady progress down the stairs towards the rest of the castle, where the girls were still waiting in the hall for the latest news. Amelia felt sorry for her students, no-one had told them the whole truth as to what was going on in the various parts of the castle, and there could be no wonder at their confusion. She wondered how she was going to make it up to them, to apologise for their disturbed and fearful night. On the other side of Constance, Mildred was talking so quickly that Amelia could barely divine the individual words, explaining the events that had occurred in the potions-mistress's absence with a huge grin over her face. Constance listened attentively, betraying little surprise at anything that occurred. Well, thought Amelia, after everything that Constance had been through it was understandable if she was never fazed by anything again. The only time that her thoughtful expression changed was when Mildred reached Della's dramatic return to life, and Constance's hands flew to her face to muffle her tears of joy. They had reached the hall by this point, and Amelia could hear the sounds of Imogen, Davina and Maud trying to organise the girls, giddy through adrenaline and lack of sleep, into some sort of order. Mildred broke away from Amelia and Constance and entered the hall to let the others know of their success. Amelia turned to her deputy.

"Would you like to go in now?" she asked. Constance shook her head.

"No, I need a few moments to… compose myself." She wiped her eyes, and it was only now that the younger witch seemed to realise that she was wearing such a flimsy dress in the middle of winter and began to shiver violently. Amelia went to cast to summon her cloak before lowering her fingers and removing her own cardigan with a smile, draping it around her deputy's shoulders. Constance's sharp eyes missed nothing, even having just recovered from a collapse.

"Your magic," she murmured. "It's gone completely, hasn't it?"

Amelia nodded.

"It has."

Constance opened her mouth to say something, to protest perhaps, but she shook her head, finally settling for giving muted and heartfelt thanks. Both knew that Amelia's magic had been used up whilst saving Constance, and there was no need for anything more to be said.

"But what will you do, headmistress?" asked Constance eventually, after a few moments of silence.

"I shall retire to the country," Amelia replied. "Taking Davina with me. We shall live a quiet, uncomplicated, magic-free existence."

"But what about Cackle's!" Constance exclaimed, drawing the cardigan further around herself. "It can't close! It's been here for hundreds of years, educating young witches... It can't go on without a head to guide it!"

"But it won't be without a head, Constance," said Amelia gently, looking at Constance over the top of her glasses and waiting for the words to sink in. It took longer than usual for the astute potions-mistress to grasp the full meaning of the sentence, and her mouth dropped open in shock.

"You mean...?"

Amelia smiled.

"I was never going to last forever Constance. I knew I needed an heir, so to speak." She pushed open the doors to the hall a fraction and looked at the gathered groups of witches. "If you can think of a person better qualified, please do speak now, or forever hold your peace."

"I..."

Amelia didn't think that she had ever made Constance Hardbroom truly speechless before. She watched the deputy - now headmistress - open and close her mouth a few times, trying to formulate words, before she took pity on the dumbstruck woman and guided her towards the doors, motioning her to enter.

"It's been a long, traumatic day," said Amelia. "I think we've all earned a cup of tea, don't you? Besides, we have an announcement to make."

* * *

**Note3: **Tada! We still have an epilogue to come, so don't go away!


	28. Epilogue

**Note: **Here we are. End of the line. I hope you enjoy!

* * *

**The Last Stand**

**Epilogue**

Amelia watched Davina from the kitchen window. The older witch was sitting in a rocking chair and knitting something that she claimed was a jumper for Amelia, but Amelia was not quite sure how she was meant to put on a garment that had only one sleeve, but apparently three neck holes. Mind you, Amelia thought with a smile, when Davina misplaced her spectacles, she was often the victim of double-vision, and when she couldn't see the stitches on the needles, well there were bound to be deviations from the pattern. Amelia wondered if Davina had ever made something correctly, but then reflected that she wouldn't be Davina if she didn't have her little oddities. Admittedly, now that she was getting into her dotage, some of her oddities weren't so little – like singing the chickens that lived in the garden of the next cottage along to sleep every night. This in itself would not be so much of a problem, but she was insistent that falsetto strains of opera were beneficial to the chickens' social education and mental wellbeing.

Retired life had come easily to Amelia, even if she had been thrust into it rather before she had anticipated. Privately, she thought that perhaps she had continued in her post for too long, enjoying the comfort that the school brought too much to consider the possibility of bringing in new blood to take her place as head, although that thought again set her laughing. Of all the staff she had ever employed at Cackle's, Constance was the only one she had ever considered as a descendant. And even though she no longer had her magic to make life easier, she was not completely cut off from the witching world; the teachers regularly came to see her, and of course Della brought Carys to visit her 'Aunt' Davina often enough. Amelia had also popped into the school on occasion to see how her legacy was continuing. In the first week or so after her investiture as headmistress, Constance had kept in almost constant contact, not due to any inadequacies on her own part but down to a desire to keep the school running in the same way that Amelia had always wished it to be run. It was touching, the ex-headmistress thought, that her influence on the school could remain so strong even after she had left, and she wondered what the future would hold for the academy that she had loved and worked so hard for.

She smiled; there was no reason to worry. With Constance at the helm and teachers like Maud and Mildred to maintain the standards, she had no doubt that it would continue to provide both an educational establishment and a safe haven for many years to come.

XXX

When Maud had come into Mildred's room late one evening, nervously made the announcement that Constance had asked her to be deputy head and asked her old friend whether or not she should accept the offer, Mildred could not say that she was entirely surprised at the headmistress's decision. Whilst Maud was worried for Mildred's feelings, since she had been a teacher longer and was therefore more entitled to the post, Mildred had no such worries. It seemed to her that Maud was a natural teacher; she had seen the way her eyes lit up when she was instructing her charges. Even though she had never intended to pursue this particular career, Mildred knew that now she had discovered her talent, she would never look back, she would always wonder why she had ever thought of doing any job other than teaching.

Mildred knew that she was the opposite. She loved teaching, and she would never say otherwise. It had certainly been the only thing she had considered after leaving college. But at the same time, Mildred would always class herself as an artist first and foremost; if she could only choose one of art or teaching, art would win every time. In her lessons she was enjoying the process of creating bright new works just as much as her students, indeed she and Maud often joked that that she was only teaching by proxy.

It just went to show, Mildred thought, how Cackle's could continue to shape their lives even long after they had ceased to study there. Both she had Maud had found their true niches here, and so had Enid, even though she had found hers in rather different circumstances. As she looked around at the artwork that adorned the walls of her classroom, she wondered how many of her pupils would also find their direction within the magic and mystery of the venerated establishment.

XXX

Della gazed out of the window over their untidy garden as she lazily stirred the chocolate fudge that was slowly setting into icing consistency. It was ironic, she thought, that the annual celebration of Carys's birth was also a time of sadness, a time for remembering the death of her father. She had never let this more melancholy anniversary overshadow her daughter's special day before, but when Carys had caught her having her yearly heart to heart with the flowerpot that stood on the kitchen window that morning, she had enquired as to the occasion. Della had glossed over the majority of the details, explaining succinctly. She knew that her daughter, with all her sparkling magical potential, would find out the whole truth sooner or later, but it was too much to burden a just-turned-eight-year-old with. She looked again at the little plant in the pot; a small hellebore. Della had been determined to have a true _helleborus_ as a fitting tribute to the sacrifice that Egbert had made for her and her daughter, although Gareth had expressed alarm at housing such a poisonous plant so close to a child's wandering fingers. That was where Constance had stepped into the breach – magic had a solution for everything it seemed – and Egbert's fauna memorial had remained ever since.

"Thanks," she said quietly, concluding the talk that had been interrupted that morning. She always said the same thing, every year, just as she always said the same thing when she visited Marlon's grave, but there was comfort in the tradition. Her heart considerably lightened, Della turned her attention to the cake that she was decorating ready for Carys's birthday tea. The past eight years seemed to have flown by; sometimes Della could scarcely believe that so much time had passed since she had first held her daughter as a newborn. Of course, there had been ups and downs in that time, but what family was not without its strife?

"Good evening," said a warm Welsh voice in her ear, Gareth's hand round her waist catching her unawares; she had been so enveloped in her thoughts she had not heard him come in. "Are we all ready for the grand unveiling?"

"As I'll ever be," said Della, twisting in his grasp having put the finishing touches on the cake and leaving it to set completely. She leaned in for a kiss, and just as their mouths had met, a yell from the living room brought them back to earth.

"It's on!" cried Carys. "It's on it's on it's on it's…ugh," she finished, disgusted, having run into the kitchen to meet the sight of her parents' embrace.

"We're coming, Carys," said Della, unlatching Gareth's hands from round her and following her girl into the living room, where the TV was showing an almost familiar castle. Carys was positively bouncing in excitement; a year ago Della had sold the rights to her children's books and they had been turned into a TV series.

It was with her tongue firmly in her cheek that Della watched the events unfolding on the screen, watching the characters of the witches she knew and love come to life. She wondered if Constance was watching, and what she would make of her portrayer. She looked sideways at her daughter, trying to gauge her thoughts. In a few short years, Carys would be off to Cackle's, and Della had warned her that it was not exactly the same as the way she had conveyed it in the books. She turned back to the screen, not really seeing but thinking, wondering if she had sold out her friends at the Academy in this way. She shook her head. They had supported her every step of the way, furnishing her with tales that she had not been privy to before, and in her own way, Della would always support them as well. She could never turn her back on the people that had been, and still were, such an exciting and amazing part of her life.

XXX

Enid always found it ironic that despite having passed all her exams with flying colours and being, even if she did say so herself, very adept at witchcraft, she should have found herself in a profession which was ultimately non-magical. She had slipped easily into the role of midwife as if it had been made for her, and from the moment she had first held Carys, she had known that there was nothing else she wanted to do in the world.

She would not deny that her magic had helped her throughout her training and her subsequent vocation; she could brew potions that were more effective than any epidural, and she knew she could always fall back on spells to assist her in an emergency. However, she preferred to use natural methods wherever possible. It just seemed right that way. People often asked her if being around babies and witnessing the horrors of birth every day had put her off having children of her own, and she would always reply that it never would. Others would ask if her calling was ever monotonous, and she would always reply that it never could be. No two mothers, no two birthing experiences were the same, and there was always the frisson of excitement and adrenaline that she felt whenever she was about to bring a new life into the world.

In the back of her mind, however, there was always a nervousness. Whilst Enid had never yet been party to a birth as strange, magical and dangerous as Carys's, she always held a certain trepidation in case of complications, in case any one of the women in her care should meet Della's fate. But this had not put her off, far from it. It merely made her work harder and harder to become better at what she did, to diminish the possibility of such an occurrence coming to light as much as possible.

In spite of her non-magical career, Enid would neither forget nor regret her time at Cackle's, nor would she forget the lifelong friends that she had made out of it. She may have moaned and made trouble at the time, but she thought that it was indeed true: her schooldays had been the best of her life.

XXX

It was the first day of the new school year and the latest intake of first-years were due to be arriving in a little under an hour. Constance looked at her reflection in the mirror, wondering just how the new arrivals would see her. As a formidable presence to be respected and awed, hopefully, but also as someone to whom they could look up and aspire, rather than a warning against what they could become… It would be ridiculous to say that Constance had not altered with age, but she would say that she had come through her years remarkably well, just the beginnings of a few lines here and there and of course, the persistent streak in her hair that had never recovered after her time in the Devil's domain. When she had first discovered it, both Mildred and Amelia having been too polite to mention it when they had first rescued her, she had wondered about trying to fix it in some way, but she had never done so. Not only was she loathe to resort to lotions and potions and magic (although Fenella and Grizelda, on learning of her cosmetic plight, had offered her their new range of haircare products at discounted price), she had found that it had also given her an air of mystique that was not wholly disagreeable. The girls who came into her care would often wonder aloud at the origin of that brilliant white stripe; the cynical ones would cite hairdressers' bleach whilst others thought wistfully of more romantic beginnings.

Constance did not mind, indeed she enjoyed it most of the time. It was one of those little things, little moments that reminded her students that this fearsome witch was a living, breathing being just like they were. She would always remember the whispers of amazement when the Halloween celebrations came and she wore her hair down. And, true to her word, she had kept the evening gown that Della had gifted her so many years before, not that she was expecting anyone to go prowling through her wardrobe.

Not much had changed at Cackle's during Constance's headship, indeed the only major alteration was the one that Constance herself would always have baulked at in her younger days – relations between Cackle's and Camelot were greatly improved. This was no doubt owing to Terrence Jones, who had taken on the wizards' school after Egbert's death. He had been determined to breathe new life into the school and bury old hatchets and rivalries, and his personal connection to Constance had meant that academic negotiations were made much easier. Terrence would always be grateful to Constance for saving his granddaughter, Carys, and Constance found his methods of teaching much more like her own, just as Amelia and Egbert had got on well for the same reason.

Constance sighed and pulled herself out of her recollections, making ready to meet her new girls. If there was one thing that her time teaching under Amelia had taught her, it was that one did not need to be feared to be loved. Amelia had been popular and respected, and she had rarely raised her voice. But, as she had confided to Mildred whilst the young teacher had still been a pupil, and as she had reiterated to Amelia on taking up her post, she only knew one tune, and it was hard to change one's direction when one had been dancing to it for so long. She would never be as good-natured as Amelia, or as gently down-to-Earth as Maud, but she knew that she would be respected, remembered and loved in her own way.

XXX

Twelve-year-old Carys Jones looked up at the gates of Miss Cackle's Academy for Witches, a smile spreading over her face as she listened in to the conversations of the other girls who were due to start their magical education alongside her that day.

"I've heard that the headmistress is really scary," murmured one, her voice low in awe of the nameless, faceless woman whom she had never met. "In order to get in, you have to turn a rabbit into a banana split bowl, and if you can't do it, then you're on the next bus home."

"Is it rabbits into banana split bowls?" asked her friend worriedly. "I thought it was newts into corkscrews." There was a pause. "My sister says she appears out of nowhere though, just after you've said something really horrible about her." She paused again, trying to think of something to mitigate this foreboding statement. "The other teachers are nice though."

"I'm really quite worried about this whole 'appearing out of nowhere' thing. Do you think she can hear us now?" asked the first girl. Carys, unable to contain her giggles any longer, burst out into fits of laughter.

"What's so funny?" the girl asked. "Don't you think the headmistress is scary?"

"I think it's scary, having someone appear out of nowhere behind you," said another girl, casting a furtive glance around to check that the formidable witch had not materialised without her realising.

"Oh, I'm used to it," said Carys, as airily as she could through her laughter. The other girls looked perplexed, but then the gates in front of them opened, and the new first year received their first glimpse of the terrifying Miss Constance Hardbroom, headmistress of Cackle's. Quite possibly the tallest witch any of them had ever met, her back was ramrod straight, her long black gown neatly fitted around her thin frame and her dark hair, adorned by an impressive streak of white, pulled back into a tight plaited bun.

"Welcome girls," she said, her voice brisk but not completely unkind. "I trust you are ready for your initiation into our establishment."

She took a step back and allowed the girls to file in under the chanting and catcalls of the older students. As Carys passed under her gaze, she whispered, just loud enough for her companions to hear:

"Good morning Aunt Constance..."

* * *

**Note2: **And here I must leave you. It has been a fantastic ride, and I have loved writing this despite my (frequent) moments of doubt. Thank you to everyone who's reviewed, favourited and put this on alert, especially the ever-amazing NCD whose reviews are a story in themselves! (Incidentally, I will be posting a list of all the songs she has so painstakingly reworded for me on my profile in due course.)

But as they say, au revior is not goodbye. Look out for my final fling in the Worst Witch world, coming soon to a computer screen near you: **The Last Stand: The Deleted Scenes!**


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